


a wish for something more

by orphan_account



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-29
Updated: 2010-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-12 07:33:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 33,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/122459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this is the second 'chapter' of the story :)</p></blockquote>





	1. a wish for something more part 1

_The sun is shining far too bright,  
For it to still be night.  
The air feels so cold - so cold and old.  
How can it be light?_

 

It was, funnily enough, not the first time Adam woke up in an unfamiliar bed, blinking against an unfamiliar angle of light in a vain attempt to find some familiarity in an otherwise unfamiliar room.

It wasn't as funny anymore once he'd gathered all necessary parts of his brain and realized he had no idea where he was, who he was with, or why his ass felt sore. Well, he had an idea as to why his ass felt sore, and why he felt sticky in places he did not want to feel sticky, but that was not the point. The point was, he had no idea what was going on.

His mom was going to kill him if she ever found out about this. He had not forgotten any of her lectures about getting into cars with men he did not know. He had not forgotten her very detailed and far too gory descriptions of what happened to little boys who got into said cars with aforementioned strangers anyway.

Though by the looks of it, he had not ended up with a serial killer this time either, so his streak of good luck was holding out. How long it would last, Adam didn't know. He chose not to think about it too hard. But he frequented parties that were semi-closed by invitation, clubs that had a hand-picked clientele, and, well, the majority of his fucks were figure skaters, so maybe it was more a subconscious sense of self-preservation than any sort of luck.

By the looks of it, instead of with the serial killer, he had ended up in bed with a boy who might be best described as not-quite-as-handsome-as-his-usual-fucks, who also looked vaguely familiar. He immediately turned very, very familiar when Adam leaned a bit closer to get a better look. Admittedly very nice eyes were staring back at him in complete and utter incomprehension and an unexpected clarity.

"Ow," Adam said and jerked back.

Stephen sat up, wincing. "Adam?"

Adam wanted this to not be true. "Tell me this is not happening," he groaned and buried his face in his hands.

There was no reply, and when Adam peered through his fingers, Stephen was looking at him open-mouthed. He closed his mouth with a little noise when he realized Adam was looking at him. "This... isn't happening?" he said tentatively.

Adam groaned again and shook his head. _Let him not be a total moron about this,_ he prayed and started slipping off the bed, already checking where he'd thrown his clothes. His pants were by the bed, but there was no sight of his underwear or his socks - oh, his socks were by the closet. His shirt was... on Stephen's side of the bed. He grasped for it and froze, startled, when Stephen slid down and handed it to Adam without a word.

"Thanks," Adam smiled.

Stephen smiled back and didn't move.

With the underwear still missing, Adam finally decided to just leave it and pulled his pants up. It was completely and utterly disgusting.

"You -" Stephen's voice broke and he had to cough. "You can shower, if you want."

"No, no, I really can't." Adam bit his lip. "I don't - I mean. It's just that it's late already and I have to get back."

Stephen blinked. "Get back where?"

"Home?"

"Oh."

Adam looked around. "Where the fuck am I, anyway?"

Stephen's lips quirked up at the corners. "My home."

"What?"

"Well. Technically, it's my parents' house, but I call it home, because that's what it is? I guess. But if you wait a minute, I could -"

"You _brought me to your parents' place_ -" Adam asked, incredulous. "- to fuck?"

Stephen turned a brilliant shade of red. "No," he hissed. "I didn't mean - I didn't plan to - I mean. I didn't _know_." He was talking in a low voice, like someone might overhear if he spoke louder. "You just said you needed a place to stay, so I offered."

"Oh." Adam frowned. Things were starting to make sense. Curran had invited him to his end-of-the-season skater party. And then they'd gotten into a fight and Curran'd told him to get lost and Adam had some pride and his flight didn't leave until the afternoon, and oh. Oh, fuck. There went his plan for a quick retreat. "How - wait, you live close together? How did I not know this?"

Stephen blinked. "No, we're. It's about half an hour?"

"So how did we get here?"

"Uhm, I've got a car?"

"You _drove_?"

"Yes."

"But - you were drunk!"

Adam hadn't thought it was possible, but Stephen's flush turned one shade darker. "I didn't drink. I had to get home somehow, didn't I? And my parents are on a business trip for a few days."

Adam's mouth fell open. "Oh my god," he said, staring. "You totally took advantage of me."

"What? No I didn't! I - who took advantage of whom, you _jumped_ me while I was - I offered you the couch but you just - started kissing me and said you'd like me better if we shared the bed and then you - and it - it just _happened_!"

"What, your dick happened to find its way up my ass?"

Stephen looked close to tears of frustration. "It's not like you were protesting, and you didn't sound drunk either! You're just fucking with me right now, you're such an asshole. You even helped me with the condoms and shit -"

"You couldn't get a condom - what are you, like, a virgin or something?"

"I'm not," Stephen said quickly, not dropping his gaze, but Adam could see it was a very, very close call - and he was reddening again. Suddenly, he was glad he had his pants on. This was way too much drama for a morning after. This was _exactly_ why he always snuck out of various houses and apartments way before their owners were even anywhere near awake.

"Look," he said, sighing. "I'm not trying to be an ass. I just need to leave. I don't do this, this whole discussion right here. So I'm just going to grab my things - have you seen - right, chair, right, I can see - I'm assuming my shoes and jacket are out by the - yeah. Okay. So, look, thanks for putting me up, and, you know. Apparently, I also paid for my stay already, so. Have a nice one, right?"

He didn't wait for Stephen's reply, just tip-toed out the door and through the hallway, down the stairs towards what he assumed was the exit, bare-foot and pulling his shirt over his head as he went.

 

 _Let's take a walk outside  
See the world through each others eyes  
I wish I was your only one_

 

The thing was, Adam didn't normally even think much about his hook-ups, not afterwards, and especially not after days and days of time he constructively spent working on his triple axel technique. It was just people. They had fun, they moved on, it wasn't a big deal. It shouldn't be.

Stephen though was a source of reoccurring discomfort because for one, there were still bits of the night he couldn't remember, no matter how hard he tried, which grated on his nerves; and also, the bit where he'd behaved like a jerk. He hadn't meant to hurt anyone, he never did. It just happened sometimes (like sometimes sex just happened). He couldn't have known the night would end like that. If he'd known it would end in sex, he'd have picked someone else to go home with. Not that he would tell Stephen that, because that would be above and beyond being a jerk, that would just be cruel. But that didn't change the fact that Stephen was definitely not the kind of person to have a drunken hook-up with.

Actually, Stephen was the kind of person one could have a stable relationship with, if one wanted that - a boy to take home to one's mom to have a bbq with, or whatever. Adam shuddered.

"You not very focus today," Miki told him when he started taking off his boots at the rink, sitting down next to him with a bottle of water to sip from.

She was right, practice had been a disaster, but that had been happening more and more often lately. And Nikolai was rarely there to kick his ass for it, either, so Adam didn't feel the need to actually _work_ on it. He shrugged. "It's summer. I'm being lazy," he said, turning his head to give her a sunny smile.

Miki smiled back, not fooled. "Discipline," she boomed, trying to imitate the way Nikolai yelled at Adam when he wasn't giving it his all in practice.

Adam dissolved into giggles. "Stop it," he breathed. "I admit defeat, I'll train harder tomorrow!"

"I be there tomorrow," Miki promised. "I will watch."

"You're a killjoy."

"I kill you," she smiled.

"No, you won't kill me. I'm too pretty to get killed for something lame like being lazy."

"I kill you with focus and discipline tomorrow," Miki told him seriously.

"Yeah." Adam snorted. "You can try, I guess."

She took another sip and handed him the bottle, which he took gratefully, even though he wasn't really thirsty. He had a bit of off-ice work still left before he could go home, but he didn't feel like moving.

"Hey, can I ask you something?"

Miki tore her gaze from the ice. "Yes."

"What do you do when you were a jerk to someone unintentionally?"

"Un-in...?"

"Without meaning to be."

"Oh." Miki frowned. She nodded her head. "You were jerk to someone?"

"I don't know. Yes?"

"But you not meant to be?"

Adam nodded.

Miki grinned. "You go and say sorry and that you not meant it."

Adam grinned back. "I'm scared. I might get killed."

Miki poked his shoulder. "I kill you anyway."

 

~~~

 

Adam was a jerk a lot. He could be a total brat when it came to his brothers and sisters, a stubborn little idiot with his parents, he was sometimes unnecessarily mean to his friends, though rarely the ones who'd done nothing wrong, and if he didn't want to do something, even Nikolai kicked his ass and sent him home instead of dealing with his mood.

He hardly ever apologized, because he didn't think being a jerk was such a bad thing. Not always. When he felt bad about it, then yes. But mostly, people just got over themselves and everybody who knew him ignored him when he was acting out.

The feeling that he needed to apologize to Stephen was different, though not, he knew, quite as new as he wanted it to be. This one was a special case and Adam really did feel sorry about it. He knew he shouldn't have treated Stephen the way he had, he could have explained instead of just running away - and he should have apologized for jumping him without a warning or a setting of preconditions. He was fairly certain Stephen had had, no matter how naive it was, a sort of expectation about the whole... thing.

Adam remembered, dim as those memories were, what it was like to have expectations for that morning after. It wasn't a nice feeling to have those trashed and burned on the spot, and to be insulted on top.

It wasn't so hard to find out Stephen's cell number and open a new text message. The writing part was harder. He sat around for half an hour, browsing some porn on the internet and then reading some figure skating boards while laughing himself silly about the fangirls' polls concerning the hottest program of the year (not without giving his own opinion as well, of course), before he told himself to stop being such a coward, that it was just a formality and Stephen would probably ignore him anyway, and wrote,

 _sry 4 bein a jerk 2u last WE. didnt mean 2B & didnt mean 2 insult u. thx 4letting me stay @urs. mightve ended on street if not 4u :)_

Adam blinked and glared at his fingers. Traitorous as they were, they were getting away with the message. Before they could decide to add even more useless and chatty things, he wrote quick greetings and his name and sent the message off.

Then he went to do the dishes, because he hadn't for three days now and the leftover Chinese was starting to smell.

~~~

He didn't compulsively check his cell phone every five minutes; after all, doing the dishes, vacuuming, wiping the floors and cleaning the bathroom took a lot longer than five minutes, and he really owed it to his roommates for letting the dishes go unwashed for a few days. The fact that he couldn't help but sneak a peak every now and then between tasks had nothing at all to do with Stephen.

Still, he felt a kind of relief ease his chest when, about an hour before his irregularly enforced bed-time, he got one back, saying,

 _u called me ur trick &left B4 breakfast. ur an ass. but I 4give u. ur welcome 4the bed._

There was a pause, and then a second beep, another text. He opened it.

 _or in it._

Adam laughed.

So maybe Stephen was not quite as lame as he'd thought. It was easy to open a new message and type a few lewd words and tease him about his skating. And his poor choice of friends.

It was also, he discovered, nice to have someone who wasn't in his life every day and did not know everything about him already. It was fun to text with someone about his day on the way to the rink or while he was running the treadmill. Especially if that someone wasn't afraid to call him an ass and couldn't see Adam's sunny smiles, which tended to get him out of trouble more often than was probably good for him.

 

 _I think you're beautiful but your hair is a mess  
And your shoes are untied but that's what I love best._

 

"Dude," Adam blurted a few weeks later, shocked to see Stephen sitting in the stands of The Ice House first thing in the morning, putting on his skate boots. "I don't do repeats."

It was quite funny to see Stephen's reply die on his lips as his face turned first red as a tomato and then utterly pale and appalled. "I'm not," he said firmly. "I didn't come here for that."

"Oh, relax," Adam laughed uneasily. "I was kidding."

Stephen pressed his lips together. "It wasn't funny."

"I bet you don't find anything funny."

"Not anything on _your_ plane of intellect, no."

"Are you insulting my intelligence?"

"You insulted my sense of humor; now everything's fair game."

Adam grinned. "But you'll always love me for my looks, though, right?" He batted his eyelashes.

"Yes, your hair looks especially horrendous today."

"Why, thank you. Just for that, you're coming home with me later and using the flattening iron to Nikolai's standard of satisfaction."

"As long as we're not going anywhere near your bed, that should be fine," Stephen allowed.

"Aw, don't be a spoilsport. I had _plans_ for that bed."

"Probably for humping it, yeah." Stephen flushed, but he was holding Adam's gaze. "Look, I -"

"What are you even doing here?" Adam interrupted. "This is like, way out for you, isn't it?"

Stephen bit his lip. "Well. I mean. Don't let this flatter your huge ego, but I guess. For you?"

"What for me?"

"I came here for you. Well, not _for_ you, but, you know. To meet up with you." Stephen's face was very red still.

Adam closed his mouth when he realized it had been hanging open. "Why?"

"Because you're my friend."

"Oh."

That was... new. But they were kind of friends. They'd been texting for over a month now. He'd never considered that there might be more. And now Stephen was standing before him, taller because he was already wearing his skates, and yes, it was an open session, but it was eight in the morning.

"How did you get here?" Adam asked. "With your car?"

Stephen looked relieved. "No, no, Drew was coming down anyway, he actually. He asked if anyone wanted to go to NJ and I realized you were going to be here, so I just. We're going back in the evening, and I thought if you didn't want to see me, I could just explore the town -"

"The town is piss ugly," Adam told him.

"Yes, well." Stephen shrugged, sheepish. "You're ugly, too, and we still did the exploring."

Adam stuck out his tongue. "When did you get so cheeky, anyway?"

"When I met you."

"Lucky me."

"Yes, you are. Are you ever going to get on the ice? I think Miki's glaring at you."

"She's going to kill you, too, just watch her," Adam pointed out gleefully.

"No, she won't." Stephen shook his head, amused. "Because I'm a good boy. And not nearly as lazy as you."

"Lies. All lies!"

But he did watch Stephen get on the ice before he sat down, taking off his jacket, to put on his skates.

 

 _And I wish I was the one,  
you lonely, lonely son,  
and you looked at me that way.  
I wish for long lingering glances,   
fairytale romances,  
every single day._

 

That morning, Adam got some real work done for a change. When he asked Stephen why he hadn't taken a day off skating while he was here, Stephen told him he didn't want to screw with his daily routine on the ice, and also, that they'd not really had an opportunity to skate together before -

"Which I think is a shame," he added, grinning, "as you'd make me a wonderful girl, and I've always wanted to try pairs."

"You need to stop acting like you're so much better than me just because you went to Worlds this season," Adam told him, grabbing his wrist as he skated past.

"I'm not acting," Stephen assured him. "Unlike you, I can actually stand a triple axel."

Adam hit his arm. "Shut up. I can totally stand it, too."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Watch me."

Of course, Adam didn't stand one of the axels out of the five he tried, and in addition, he felt like he'd bruised his ass enough that he'd never have sex again. It was thoroughly unfair.

"Don't pout." Stephen patted his head, skating a circle around him as he sat on the ice, refusing to get up for another attempt. "You can show me your layback spin, if you want. It's great."

"It is?" Adam asked, fishing, and climbed to his feet with a groan.

"You know it is."

So Adam did a few of those, but not at all because Stephen liked them, and then he did a few other spins in combination, and he didn't stop until he was spinning so fast he thought he might get sick.

Then Nobunari and Elene came on the ice to practice and with them Nikolai, who'd arrived back from Russia the day before, and Stephen made himself scarce and went to one corner of the rink to practice his own spins and footwork, while Adam skated over to greet Nikolai and ask what news he brought about next season's programs.

 

~~~

 

"He seems nice," Stephen offered on their way back to Adam's dorm room.

"What? Who?"

"Morozov."

"Oh. Yeah, he's okay." Adam shrugged. "He's got a lot of business to do, so he's traveling more often than not, and working on programs and so on. Miki practices with me most of the time, whenever our timetables overlap, and Daisuke, you know, Daisuke Murakami sometimes practices at the same time as me, so we help each other out a bit." He could see from Stephen's expression that Stephen wasn't convinced this was good enough, so he decided to change the subject. "Drew's who, again?"

Stephen wisely let him get away with it. "He skates pairs. He split up with his former partner last year - I think you know her? Julia Vlassov? He's looking for a new girl right now, though I think he's found someone."

"And that's why he's here?" Adam quickly scrolled through the list of available pair skaters in his vicinity and came up with a zero.

"No, no. As far as I've been able to figure out, he's here to tell Johnny he might be moving a bit further away than Boston."

Adam stared. "You're kidding."

"What?"

"No, I mean, I didn't know Johnny had a boyfriend, that's all."

Stephen looked uncomfortable. "I don't know if they're boyfriends. I think they might have been. Maybe they are again. I didn't really ask."

"Oh."

"Uhm, why?"

"What?"

"No, nothing." Stephen shrugged. "Forget it."

Adam gave him a long look, but then decided that it would only be fair to extend Stephen the same courtesy he'd received earlier and didn't pry. They only had a few more steps to his building anyway, and they made them in silence. Then, while they were walking up the stairs towards the front door, Adam realized that he'd had no idea he was going to have a visitor and, subsequently, the whole apartment might not look inviting, depending on whether or not Nobunari and Daisuke had done their share of the chores.

"You might want to pay attention to where you're stepping," he warned. "I'm not sure, but there might be some stuff lying around you don't want to have glued to your soles."

"... that answers the question of whether or not I should take off my shoes."

"Hey, you have the supreme privilege of still having your very own mom to clean up after you. I have to fend for myself here!"

Stephen grinned. "Did you even see my room while you were over?"

Adam tried to recall, and closed his mouth. "You're so boring," he finally managed.

"I like to be able to find things, is all," Stephen replied sweetly.

"Well, don't expect to find anything in here." And with that, Adam opened the door.

It wasn't actually as horrible as he'd made it out to be. Obviously. He wasn't a pig, and neither were his roommates, and they all hated it when things were filthy. It was maybe not quite as neat as Adam would have liked it to be, before bringing company, but. It would do. Still, exaggeration, he'd learned, tended to lower expectation and then he mostly got away unscathed when the trouble turned out less than he'd actually prepared people for.

It was the same this time. Stephen looked around hesitantly after Adam closed the door behind him, and then said, "It's not that bad?"

"Looks like someone cleaned up. And no one's home. Brilliant. So, what do you want for lunch? I have yogurt, and yogurt, and some more yogurt. This is a figure skating household. I might be able to scrape together some fruit mix if you want. And fries. I remember we still have those in the freezer. We can steal Miki's low-fat cheesecake."

Stephen followed him into the kitchen, which was nice and clean. Apparently, at some point before Adam's time here, there had been an infestation of cockroaches that had been bad enough to cure every inhabitant of this apartment of every and all attempts to not clean the kitchen for two weeks or so.

"You don't have to feed me," Stephen protested. "I know I caught you unprepared, uhm, how about I take you out to eat?"

Adam leaned back against the counter and felt the need to hop up and sit on top of it with his legs spread. He didn't, because again, bad idea, but also, he thought, it might just be a defense mechanism against this very clumsy attempt to court him. He was so totally seeing through Stephen.

"So you're hoping what," he teased, "if you put food on the table, I'll put out again?"

"Believe it or not, not everyone's after your ass."

"No, admittedly, not everyone, but you are."

"I'm not." Stephen's cheeks reddened, as always when he was half-lying. He had to know Adam knew, because he quickly backtracked. "Okay, fine, you're..." He waved his hand. "You know what you look like, I don't need to tell you. It's not a huge mental leap to go there whenever I look at you, but I didn't come here with the intention to get sex, and it also wasn't the reason why I offered to buy us lunch."

"You talk way too much," Adam snorted.

"What?"

"You. You constantly ramble on and on, like you think anyone's interested in your explanations."

Stephen startled and looked like he'd been slapped.

Adam started feeling bad when Stephen opened his mouth, taking a breath to say something, only to close it again and look even more dazed, probably because he'd realized he could say nothing that wouldn't again sound like an explanation. He pulled away from the counter and grabbed an apple from the bowl, tossing it at Stephen. "C'mon, don't get mad at me."

"I wasn't," Stephen mumbled, looking at the apple.

"You were going to tell me what an ass I am. I'm sorry, okay?" Adam smiled sunnily. "Forgive me?"

Stephen tried scowling, but the corners of his lips were twitching up. "Just show me your room, okay?" he demanded. "And then we'll go eat something real, not just food that pretends to be food."

"Don't insult the apples, Stephen."

"Don't make me throw this one at your head, _Adam_. We'll see how much you'll like an apple once it's responsible for a bruise to your head."

"Domestic violence!" Adam cried. He grabbed Stephen's sleeve, though, and pulled him through the door, down the hall and to his bedroom to show him all the autographs he had from various cool skaters and a few of his signed Cds.

 

 _And you look at me and say  
I'm your best friend every day.  
But I wish for something,   
wish for something more._

 

When they got back from lunch, they found Nobunari and Elene had returned and were bickering in the kitchen over the hot water kettle, with Fumie sitting in her usual chair, watching them with amusement while she licked a spoonful of Adam's yogurt. They fell silent when Adam and Stephen entered. Elene gave them a knowing smirk.

"What?" Adam asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing," she replied, hitting Nobunari's knuckles with her cup without even looking.

"Ouch!" he protested.

"You guys going to the rink again later?"

Elene nodded. "In the evening. Fumie has an afternoon session. You have that one, too, right?"

"Yep. We just ate lunch, so we'll be in my room till then." Adam waved and pulled Stephen with him. He ignored the suggestive eyebrow-twitch from Elene and returned Nobunari's good-natured smile. Later he managed to persuade Stephen to get on the bed, though Stephen insisted they use the time to play a few rounds of internet scrabble instead of having sex.

His loss, Adam thought, but was stupidly pleased inside, which was just weird because there was nothing better than sex. Except maybe lying a bit too close together on his bed, with Stephen's fingers drumming a rhythm onto the mattress, watching black-and-white classics on his too-small TV screen.

In the evening, Stephen left.

The next morning, on the way to the rink, Adam wrote him a funny text message about his dreams from the past night, and they swapped ideas of torture methods their coaches might come up with today to make their lives harder, and it was like Stephen'd never visited, like nothing at all had changed.

He was glad for that, because he'd really started to enjoy their daily rituals of dream-sharing and coach-bitching, and he knew the possibility of fucking it up was a lot bigger face-to-face. Then again, his smiles only worked face-to-face, so there was definitely a plus to every drawback.

 

 _I love you like a friend,  
but lets not pretend,   
how I wish for something more._

 

Beginning of June, Adam went home for a week.

He hadn't planned to, but Nikolai was gone again because of some emergency in Russia (or maybe the Ukraine). Nikolai had been gone a lot lately, which made not only Adam grumpy, Nobunari too was complaining, as he had to get ready for the new season in which he wanted to win every competition he entered. Even Miki was frustrated, which was rare for her, because her lutzes were giving her a hard time, and she told Adam when he asked that there was no way she could work on changing anything without her coach there to tell her what had shifted about her technique.

He missed his brothers and sisters, and his mom'd been asking on the phone when he was coming for a longer visit again, and even his dad had told him it was time to come home. And if his dad told him it was time, then it really was time.

His mom was waiting for him at the airport, as were Brady and Sawyer. He gave them all big hugs, Brady and Sawyer hung onto him and didn't want to let go, and his mom laughed and got his luggage for him so he could carry Sawyer on his back and keep Brady's hand in his own.

"Are Tyler and the girls at home?" he asked.

"Tyler's got school till late afternoon, Jordan and Dagny are at a birthday party."

Adam pouted.

"We're here!" Sawyer pointed out and bounced, jabbing Adam's hip with his knee.

"Yep. You're getting presents for that too, once we're home!"

"Yay, presents!" Brady burst out and buried his head in Adam's stomach, trying to fit his arms around him in a hug, while Sawyer bounced some more.

 

~~~

 

However, one thing he always forgot about being home was that after two days, he started getting bored and easily irritated, and he loved his brothers, he really did, but he was a little old for Star Wars roleplays now; there was only so often he could pretend to die from horrible, light-saber induced wounds.

He had a couple of friends in town, but he hadn't really spoken to most of them for the better part of two years. He'd also recently discovered that two of the guys who he'd thought were his friends were jealous and bad-mouthing him behind his back, one who he used to play soccer with had moved away and was at college now, and he'd never said a word of it to Adam, and while he loved spending his time with girls because they were fun, he'd never really gotten close to any while living at home because he'd always thought they'd get the wrong idea and then find out he was gay and leave in a huff.

Well, figure skating had cured him of that, at least.

He read a lot. Stephen'd told him to try "The Kite Runner" because it was one of the best books he'd ever read. Adam liked it even though he'd hated "East of Eden" and first feared this book might be a cheaper copy. Katrina sent him her pictures from Four Continents (finally) and another book, George Eliot this time, who he only found out after some research was actually a woman. He preferred the pictures, but he didn't tell her that.

He also started writing again. Actually, Tyler unknowingly put him on that track, because he'd found a few of Adam's old notebooks in the attic while looking for exams he could work through for math, and read them - which set Adam off anew every time he thought about it. There was a reason his name was on those books and also, in big bold letters, the word 'Secret'.

They were a bit embarrassing to re-read. He'd started writing when he'd been thirteen and kept doing it for a year or two until he'd given up for lack of time. He'd always wanted to take a creative writing course or something at college if he could. The stories he'd written were all romantic novel attempts, all the old tropes from the pair of lovers being stuck in an cold room to the high fantasy elf-meets-human cliché.

He was never going to forgive Tyler for reading them. Never mind the fact that Tyler would be making fun of him for as long as he lived.

That evening, he logged into the internet and typed:

 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:25:55)** : so i've this idea for a novel

It took a few moments for the reply, but he could imagine Stephen's expression when he got it.

 **pinksmycolor (20:26:01)** : rly. when did u get into porn?  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:26:15)** : 's not porn, idiot. it's a generational drama. you'll love it.  
 **pinksmycolor (20:26:59)** : you can't even spell your own name, adam. see? I spelled it for you. now you try.  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:27:02)** : ass  
 **pinksmycolor (20:27:09)** : wanker  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:27:20)** : you're not even British  
 **pinksmycolor (20:27:50)** : and you can't spell your own name  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:28:25)** : oh, shut up, I'm not talking to you anymore.

Adam sat back in his chair and pouted. He didn't even know why he'd told Stephen, though yes, they were friends, and lately, he'd been telling Stephen everything. Especially about how he had not been getting any because there was no proper club or party around where he could pick someone up. Tonight, for example, he thought. Tonight would have been the perfect night. Except he was stuck at home, and he just knew that if he told his mom he wanted to go out, she'd give him that look and ask if he could maybe play with Jordan instead, or help Dagny with her homework.

 **pinksmycolor (20:30:03)** : don't be a pouty baby. you invited to CC?

Adam was just about to log off, but the question made him reconsider.

 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:30:20)** : still can't believe it. yep. amazing, huh?  
 **pinksmycolor (20:30:54)** : yes. who'd you blow?

Adam stared at his screen open-mouthed.

 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:32:25)** : Stephen?  
 **pinksmycolor (20:32:27)** : yeah?  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:32:50)** : 'm going to show this log to your mom.

There was no answer. Adam rolled his eyes. Then his email pinged. He blinked, opened the window and checked his email. He had a new one, from Stephen, which - okay. He opened it, and read, " _see attached_ ".

Adam closed his eyes. Then he opened them again and clicked on the attachment. It was a screen-sized picture of his own naked butt, and a few other limbs, none of which were his own.

 **pinksmycolor (20:34:02)** : so - just out of curiosity. how many people in your bed that night?

Adam felt his cheeks burn.

 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:34:12)** : fuck off  
 **pinksmycolor (20:34:52)** : that's what I thought. I'll see you at the camp, kay? bring the novel. I'd love to read it.  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (20:35:08)** : fuck off and die  
 **pinksmycolor (20:35:13)** : oooh, we're being mature <3 good nite!

And he didn't even get the last word, because Stephen logged off after that.

 

~~~


	2. a wish for something more - part 2

_Now the grass is so green  
but I can't see anything   
past your eyes._

 

Adam woke up early. Outside, it wasn't yet dawn, and his alarm hadn't gone off, which meant he had about half an hour before he had to crawl out of bed, slip into his clothes and snatch up his bags, and about forty minutes until Nikolai arrived at the front door to collect him. He'd timed it exactly so that he wouldn't need more than ten minutes to get ready. He knew he'd arrive looking like a homeless person on a bad hair day, but he cherished his sleep. He just hoped taking the earlier flight would give him enough time to shower, and that the room at the Training Center in Colorado had a proper bathroom.

He planned to close his eyes for a little longer when his cell vibrated on his desk. Then it became an inner struggle between indulging on those fifteen more minutes of sleep and checking who'd written him. Of course, the curiosity gnawed. He held out for a whole minute before he was off the bed.

 _mornin goldilocks_ , Stephen's message read. _rise &shine. am @the airport waiting2check in. am sleepy&bored2death. entertain me._

Adam smiled and crawled back into his bed, shivering, with the phone still in his hand. _ur a big boy_ , he typed. _u should kno how2entertain urself. r no toilets nearby?_

 _ur disgusting. is that what ur doin rite now, y/n?_

 _y_

He thought about doing it, he really did; his hand had all by itself slipped below the waistband of his pyjama pants. However, his alarm was due to go off in eight minutes and he really didn't want to end up taking longer than that; Elene was an early riser and she barged into his room without knocking when she thought he was going to oversleep.

Then Stephen wrote, _ok gotta go, our turn in 5. have fun. see u in a few hrs <3_, and that clinched it. It was far less fun jerking off when he couldn't say afterwards that he'd been doing it while texting with his other hand. He got off the bed, threw his cell into his backpack and pulled his pyjama top over his head.

 

~~~

 

They arrived in Colorado Springs within an hour from each other, but by the time Adam arrived, Stephen looked unpacked, standing by the front desk of the Training Center with Emily Hughes, Mark and Peter. He looked dorky in his outfit, and sleepy, even though it was going on noon by now. Emily was saying something, grinning widely, then Adam saw Peter answer and Stephen broke out into giggles. He goddamn giggled, like a twelve-year-old girl.

Adam looked over his shoulder to where Nikolai was talking with an official speaker for one of the presentations that would be held later on. Adam had never seen him before, but he looked distinctly Russian. He had a feeling Nikolai would be distracted for a while, so he got his cell out and wrote, _ur giggles r hilarious._

He watched from where he was standing as Stephen opened his mouth to say something to Emily, then how he stopped mid-sentence, reached inside his pants pocket, and flipped his phone open. Stephen's head rocked up and when their gazes met, his grin was huge.

It was Adam's cue to approach their little group. He wasn't prepared for the bone-crushing hug Stephen gave him and yelped, "Careful! I've got bags to hold on to!" But Emily was already snickering and hugged him too, just because he was there and didn't protest the molestation.

"Hello, Adam," Peter greeted after she was done with him, and Mark nodded, smiling.

"Hi guys. And, uh, girl." He looked over his shoulder again. "Looks like my coach'll take a while. Do you know how the rooming's arranged?"

"Doubling up," Emily said.

Adam blinked. Nobody'd told him that. "Is there like, a room sheet?" he asked Stephen's coaches. "I guess the Colorado guys and all the couples have all doubled up already?"

Stephen was flattening his hair with his palm, trying to look inconspicuous. Adam raised his eyebrows at him.

"Stephen's been standing around since we arrived, talking people out of rooming with him," Emily told him in a half-whisper.

"Shut up, I did not," Stephen protested.

"He totally figured out that the number of guys is uneven and he's counting on getting a single for himself. He's sneaky like that."

"No, that's not what... you know that I don't - just."

Emily grinned and clucked her tongue.

"If I'm not getting that single room, neither is Stephen," Adam said, joining in Emily's grin.

Stephen frowned. "What, you want to like, room together?"

Adam shrugged. "We're friends, right?" He couldn't stop grinning. "And I jerked off to your text messages this morning, so we shouldn't have a problem."

Emily pushed at his shoulder. "Ugh, you're gross."

"I'm going to kill you," Stephen promised.

"And everyone'll know it was you; you might get a single cell in prison if you play your cards right?"

"Smartass."

"Monkeybrain."

"Fish biscuit!"

"Boys," Mark interrupted. Adam could see he was fighting a smile. "How about you ask the nice lady at the reception for your room key. And Stephen, you best help Adam get set up so we're not late for the keynote address."

"I'm not his nanny!"

"Just his boyfriend," Emily giggled.

"No, we're not!" Adam heard himself say in horror and, for a second, he thought the room had an echo. Then he realized that Stephen had said the same thing at the exact same time. There was something weird about the sensation heating up his stomach when he looked at Stephen's face.

Stephen just rolled his eyes. "Don't even dare spreading gossip, Em. Otherwise, I'll lose a few gossipy details about you by accident, too."

Emily's eyes widened. "You wouldn't!"

"Sure I would."

"You promised!"

"He's evil," Adam told her as he grabbed his bags to go get his key and then carry them upstairs. "He looks like he could ride unicorns, but inside, his soul's black as... as... something that's a deep, deep black."

"Hey!"

"A black hole. A black hole's black enough to describe the blackness of your soul -"

"My soul's not black!" Stephen told him indignantly, nudging him with his shoulder. "I can tell you right now my soul's probably... I don't know. Pink or something."

"You really, really like pink, don't you," Adam snorted.

"I also like you enough to offer to take one of your bags."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. Thanks."

"Also." Stephen hesitated.

Adam got his key and they made their way towards the elevators. He turned his head to meet Stephen's gaze. "What?"

Stephen reddened. "Your glasses look really cute."

"Oh God," Adam groaned, sliding them up onto his head like a headband. "If you as much as _mention_ the horror that is my hair, I will lock you out of the room tonight, I swear."

"No, I didn't -"

"I had ten minutes to get ready this morning! And two hours spent at the airport, getting a kink in my neck!"

"But -"

"So don't judge. You probably had a shower already. Ass."

Stephen sighed. Adam gave him a pointed look, daring him to say anything else.

 

 _I'm fixated on your smile,  
your cherry lips make life worthwhile_

 

They spent the rest of the day in stuffy seminar rooms listening to people talk about 'Strategies For Achieving Personal And Performance Goals', looking at slides that informed them about nutrition, anti-doping procedures, media training. Even Adam got that that one was mostly directed at Johnny, who incidentally was sitting next to the two people in the room who were the closest to Russian that they could get while having an American passport (though to be fair, Adam'd heard he was friends with Denis and Melissa for their own merits). He was also polishing his fingernails and giving his best impression of someone who was too busy with himself to grace anyone in the room with his attention.

Next to him, Nikolai shifted impatiently every now and then. Adam had no idea why he was even sitting there, he had to have heard this a million times already. Hell, Adam had, and he'd never been to Champs Camp before. But apparently there would be some more meetings later for the coaches and Nikolai wanted to know what that was about. Adam was ridiculously glad that after six hours of PowerPoint presentations he wouldn't have to partake in those.

The sun was close to the horizon when they got out. There had been a few breaks in between to get a snack or spend five minutes in the sun on the grass before the Center, but this was the end for the day. They were advised to use the facilities to work out some before going to bed early - not that Adam thought for a second anyone would heed the advice. He'd overheard the girls planning a girls' night - apparently Rachael had smuggled in a bottle of Tequila, and Ashley was renowned for her poker skills.

He found Stephen after the single and team photoshoots were done for the day, standing together with Emily, Emily, Ashley and Alissa, gesticulating wildly with his arms while the girls listened and laughed and sometimes threw in a word or two.

"- and you know how Peter gets when Mark tries to get him into a funny costume, he was like, 'I'm never, ever gonna wear a fedora hat, not even for you'. Though well. Next skating session, he came in wearing one, which just proves that he's a total pushover when it comes to Mark."

"Sexual favors of your choice, no kidding," Ashley snorted. The Emilies snickered.

Then Alissa spotted him and made a little room for him, speaking over the laughter. "Hey Adam. Stephen told us you're rooming together. Have you come to steal him away?"

"You can keep him," Adam allowed graciously. "I was thinking about how to get rid of him earlier. Any of you have a spare bed for him?"

Stephen gave him a funny look and pulled on his sleeve. "Why, is there anything you have planned for tonight that you need privacy for?"

It sounded mostly amused, but there was a sharper edge beneath the words that made Adam tread carefully. He shuffled over and slung his arm over Stephen's shoulder. "I was going to loot the snack table, actually, and watch TV while stuffing myself with chips and sweets. Alas, there goes my secret plan of covertness."

Ashley grinned. "Stephen'll make sure you eat enough dinner and then there'll be no space for snacks in your belly. I was here last year - believe me, the food in the cafeteria is _exceptional_."

"Stephen's not Adam's nanny," Stephen told her in a serious tone of voice and ruffled Adam's hair. Adam squeaked.

Ashley opened her mouth.

"If you call him my boyfriend, I'm going to climb into your room through the window tonight, paint embarrassing things on your face in permanent black marker, and make you pee in your sleep," Adam threatened.

Ashley closed her mouth.

"Touchy," Emily whispered and gave him a knowing look, eyebrows twitching.

 

~~~

 

After dinner that evening, they went straight up to their room. Adam told Stephen what he'd overheard about the girls' night out, but Stephen had yawned and that had been all the reply Adam'd needed. They stayed by themselves, exhausted and hardly able to move, and laid down on the same twin bed, close together with Stephen curled on his side, head on Adam's shoulder. The excuse for this sort of cuddling, of course, was that it was the only way he could read the looped and curvy writing in the notebook while Adam re-read and corrected sentences and crossed out parts.

Another paragraph got the red marker treatment, and Stephen grumbled.

"What?" Adam asked, trying not to smile; Stephen's hair tickled his chin.

"I liked that one."

"Which one?"

"The - the part you just decided to erase. It was good."

"It was cheesy and the metaphors - I have no idea what I was thinking writing that."

"It wasn't bad. C'mon, it's fitting to describe her as vast as the sea from his point of view. He sees her like that, as all-knowing and all-powerful and all that, right?"

"It's unoriginal."

"So change the metaphor. But honestly, I liked it."

Adam shrugged. Stephen grumbled again, this time in discomfort.

"You shouldn't even be reading this," Adam told him.

"What? You told me you wanted to show it to me." Stephen raised his head and turned to face him, holding himself up on his elbows. "I'm just saying what I think."

"Fine, okay."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Fair enough. Tell me what you think."

Stephen gave him a warm, gentle smile that made his eyes shine, nudged the rim of Adam's glasses with his finger and laid back down onto his shoulder. Adam's stomach did a little flip.

"What's it about, anyway? I'm just reading along, catching bits, but, like - what's the story?"

Adam chewed on his marker and fought the impulse to touch his glasses where Stephen's finger had been. "It's part adventure, part love story, part a kind of - evolution thing, I guess? I read this book about how supposedly there was, a few thousand years ago, a meteor impact that wiped out a lot of people in certain areas, and I thought that kind of background, like, an apocalyptic story, would be nice for a generational story like the ones you're always reading?"

"It sounds good," Stephen mumbled into his shoulder. "Do you have all the characters and the plot and all that?"

"A bit of it."

"Cool."

"Yeah." Adam tapped his notebook. "And a few scenes, as you can see."

"Hm-hm. Tell me more."

"I guess..." Adam bit his lip and waited until Stephen was done wriggling and had found a position that was comfortable before he laid the notebook down and started telling him about the girl who was the main character for the first quarter of the book and her family life and how they were trying to survive in bunkers, and when he arrived at the part where she died giving birth to her son, he realized Stephen was half-asleep on him, mumbling softly into his shirt.

Adam let his head fall back with a thunk and stared at the ceiling. "At least tell me it wasn't the story," he joked.

Stephen mumbled some more, and his mouth brushed Adam's neck as he straightened his back, breathing deep and even. Adam's stomach tightened into a tiny ball of nerves and he felt himself tense. His face burned. His dick was hard in his pants, skin hot where Stephen was pressed up against him.

Suddenly, he found it very, very easy to see why he'd had sex with Stephen that first night after Curran's end-of-season party. The way his lips felt, his hands on Adam's chest in a loose fist, the long, dark eyelashes brushing his cheeks. Adam closed his eyes and inhaled, willing his cock to soften again, because Stephen was his friend and also had made it abundantly clear that no sex business was going to happen between them again; and because Stephen was asleep so thinking about wrapping his mouth around Stephen's cock and then riding him until he couldn't breathe was just creepy.

Hot, and so not helping the hard-on, but also creepy. So he just re-opened his eyes, then slowly, uneasily extricated himself from Stephen's body, ignoring the low sigh of protest, and changed into the pyjamas he'd brought before untucking the second twin bed and lying down, feeling cold and much less comfortable than he had before. He put the glasses on the nightstand before he went to sleep.

 

 _I'm thinking these things,  
what I'm trying to say is   
life gets in my way,   
every single day._

 

The problem was, Adam decided, that he wasn't getting laid. He woke up early, went to the showers (communal, for the whole floor, the horror, which meant no jerking off there either), went to the gym in the east part of the Center to work out for an hour, before he then re-visited the showers.

Others had no problem with either getting laid or the showers being communal, he discovered upon stepping in. He knew he'd never get the image of Charlie and Jeremy doing it against the tiled wall off the backs of his eyelids.

Stephen was getting ready for his own shower when Adam returned to their room.

"You might want to wait half an hour with that," Adam suggested.

"What? Why?"

"Because privacy is not the first thing on some people's sexytimes list."

Stephen stared. "Really?"

Adam's lips quirked up. "Yep."

"Who was it?"

Adam opened his mouth, then snorted. "Oh no, I'm not telling you. You'll use it to blackmail them into something because your soul is blacker than black holes, I've figured you out, Stephen Carriere."

"I would never," Stephen swore. "I use it as _leverage_. There's a difference."

"There really, really isn't."

"Anyway, I hope they're done soon." Stephen looked at his watch. "We've got that presentation on strength and condition at nine, and it's past eight and - have you checked which of the rooms it's in?" Then he stopped. "Wait, why were you up so early?"

"Went to check out the gym. It's cool. We should go later again, they have a wicked leg muscle machine thing. Wait for me? I need a quick shower now anyway."

Stephen gave him a funny look, but nodded. Adam realized that with all the conflicted urges and the whole wanting-to-ride-him thing last night, maybe he should not have said that after all, but then, he couldn't just go around ignoring Stephen because he had a hard-on for him. That would be mean, especially now that Stephen was helping with the novel and - "You can help with my hair, right? It's like, it knots, a lot, especially when I try to brush it myself. Sometimes, I don't brush at all and it kinda works? But it's best if someone else brushes."

The showers were steamy. Stephen was lithe-bodied and muscly in all the right places and had a really nice dick. He didn't linger, but Adam still turned the water a bit cooler than he liked just in case. Stephen also got red-faced and puffy-lipped because of the hot water he preferred, which Adam noticed once they were both dressed. He looked crazy sweet and like he needed to be kissed, right away.

"So, we have ten minutes. Hair?" he asked instead, hopeful the puppy eyes would convince him.

"Brush," Stephen commanded and pushed Adam to sit on the edge of his bed before he straightened up and blinked. "You - haha, you smell girly."

Adam scoffed. "It's vanilla, and I asked Stéphane Lambiel last time I saw him, and he swears on its positive effects with his life."

"Oh, well, if Stéphane Lambiel says so, I guess it must work."

Adam hummed. And then Stephen started to comb through his hair carefully, with delicate strokes and little caresses of his fingers. He couldn't help it: he leaned into the touches, closed his eyes, and from deep in his lungs, a sound of pure pleasure escaped his lips, sounding like a purr.

Stephen laughed. "You're like a kitten!" he said.

Adam tried not to move so that he wouldn't stop. "And you're like... magic."

 

~~~

 

He needed to get laid. It was imperial that he get laid, because sitting through a two-hour presentation on self-assessment might have helped with the erection, but not with the rest of his Stephen-related issues. Nikolai'd left the morning, around the same time Mark and Peter had left, and that had resulted in Stephen and him sitting next to each other at the little tables to stare at the slides, with Stephen tapping his foot rhythmically while their elbows brushed with every tap. It was not Adam's idea of fun.

"Stop it," he finally hissed when his nerves were frayed just enough that he was sure he would not be able take one more brush of skin without exploding.

Stephen's head shot up, and he rubbed the back of his neck with his palm. "Oh. Sorry."

Adam glared some more and turned back to the presentation. Next to him, Stephen doodled a smiling sun on his sheet of paper and sighed.

That afternoon, Adam found himself sitting between Alexe and Kimmie, with no Stephen in sight because he'd wandered off once he realized his team-building exercises would be conducted with Rachael, Kim and Charlie. Adam tried hard not to be mad at Charlie. Instead, he wrote Stephen a text, saying: _his locks prolly rn't even real. poser._

Stephen wrote back immediately. _wtf r u talkin bout?_

 _if u wanted2fuck some1 w/locks, u shoulda said._

Adam stared at his cell for a while, but there was no reply. He sighed. Next to him, Alexe rolled her eyes.

"What?" he asked.

"You're such a moron," Kimmie said and ruffled his hair.

"I'm not!" Adam protested.

"Yes, you are," Alexe told him seriously. "But we're supposed to be building a raft now, not talk about retarded gay boys who can't think past their dicks."

"We can always talk about you being a retarded gay boy later," Kimmie promised. "After we've won this stupid competition."

"But - hey! What - I'm not retarded!"

"Yes, you are," the girls said in sync, each patting one of his knees.

Adam glared. Then another text message came in. He opened it triumphantly.

 _ADAM_ , it read. _u r a total &braindead idiot & Stephen deserves better. get ur shit 2gether. important conference in my room 2nite@9 after raftbuiling. we'r so kickin ur asses, bitches. Rachael._

"What did he say?" Alexe asked.

"Uhm," Adam said and looked away.

 

 _Now the sun is fading  
Now the rain is coming down  
And I'm looking at your face  
And you're looking at the ground_

 

So, Adam was obviously a loser. That was concluded quickly and painlessly (except for his pride, which suffered) that evening, when he found he was the only floppy-haired gay boy in a roomful of more or less giggly girls. And when Adam said a roomful, he meant a roomful. Rachael was rooming with Alexe, he knew that, but beside the two, there was also Kimmie, Ashley, Alissa and both Emilies.

"Because Stephen's heart not being trampled is in our best interest," Emily Hughes said. "He's a total ass when he's upset."

"Also, he's one of the sweetest boys here," Alexe added. "He doesn't mind me being shy at all."

"You're not shy," Adam said.

Alexe shrugged. "Not the point."

"We've all gathered here today," Rachael started, grinning, "to discuss the future of this relationship and give it our blessing or damnation." She frowned. "Oh hell, I knew someone was missing. We should call Katrina."

"And Juliana," Emily said, eyebrows twitching. They always, always did that when she had a plan, and Adam did not like it when that happened, at all.

"Juliana, huh?" Ashley asked, looking disappointed. "I thought he might still be... you know."

"Not the Boston boys," Emily grinned. "We get to them while they're still young and impressionable." She turned to Rachael. "I've heard some stories about the Colorado boys, though."

Rachael's expression was terrifying. "There's been some catfights about Josh. Don't ask me. I have handcuffs, which, like. If you know the type, you know the type."

"Guys," Adam interrupted, feeling deeply disturbed. "Girls, I meant. What - are you talking about? Relationship? What - why am I even here?"

"Sit down," Alexe told him. "And shut up."

Adam stared. "What?"

"Don't be an ass." Ashley rolled her eyes. "We won't hurt you. Much."

"I don't want to get hurt!"

"Just sit _down_."

"Fine," Adam grumbled. Kimmie took his hand when he picked the spot next to her and smiled, amused. He liked her, which was the only reason why he didn't yank it out of her grasp immediately.

"Phone," Rachael commanded. Adam had no idea how Rachael had managed to get a landline into her Training Center room, because he was fairly sure no one else had one of those, but he was not entirely sure he wanted to know. Suffice to say, she got the phone and dialed.

"Yep?"

"Hey, Katrina. You're on speaker."

"Oooh, Rachael. How are you guys? Colo, right? Is Stephen there?"

"Nope. It's just us girls."

"Hey!" Adam said.

"And Adam," Rachael allowed. "But don't mind him."

"Oh, oh, oh, are we having a convention? Hi, girls!"

"Hi, Katrina!" the girls greeted her.

"What's going on?"

"That's what I want to know!" Adam said.

Katrina laughed. "Hi, Adam!"

"What's going on is that we all think Adam is being a total moron while clumsily courting Stephen," Alexe explained.

"Oh. _Oooooh_!" Katrina sounded close to a laugh attack.

"I'm not courting anyone!" Adam protested. "And I'm not clumsy." He tilted his head. "Or a moron."

"Yes, you are, shut up," Emily told him.

"Stephen's yours, right, Katrina?" Rachael asked. "What's his word on this?"

"Oh, don't worry about Stephen," Katrina said. Adam could hear the giant smirk in her voice. "Adam?"

"Yeah?" Adam grumbled, mad.

"Aw, don't be like that, sweetie. We're just trying to help."

"I don't want your help. I don't need your help." He glared at the round of girls. Kimmie was smirking, too, so he took his hand back. "All I need right now is to get laid, that's all. We're just friends."

"You're such an idiot," Katrina told him.

"No, I'm not."

"You just don't want to admit you want to have a boyfriend. Or rather - that you want him to be your boyfriend."

"I don't want a boyfriend."

"We're worried about you," Alissa told him earnestly. "All that sleeping around... it can't be good, can it? Stephen's lovely."

"Yes, he is," Kimmie chimed in. "He's perfect for you. And he obviously likes you, or he wouldn't spend so much time with you."

"He does not want to fuck, though," Adam pointed out, feeling triumphant because he was _right_ , damnit.

However, Katrina cackled. "Yeah," she said, catching her breath. "In what parallel dimension?"

"What?"

"Adam, seriously. You've _already_ fucked."

The girls in the room all stared at him, unblinking, disapproval in their eyes, and Adam sunk deeper into himself. "Don't judge!" he said loudly, glaring around. "It just happened!"

"You're such a moron," Katrina repeated. "You're a _slut_. He's a good boy. Like he'd have let anything just 'happen' if he hadn't really, really wanted to."

"Oh, I _knew_ it!" Adam yelped. "He totally took advantage of me!"

The girls all groaned and moaned, and he thought he heard two or three of them call him a drama queen. It just wasn't fair; this was so not his fault, and he was being gang-pressed!

Emily broke it down, finally. "So, what we have right now is one 'it just happened'-one-night-stand. A few months of solid friendship, one definitely interested Stephen and one Adam who's being a bitch about long-term commitment." She frowned. "This reminds me of someone."

"I am not afraid of long-term commitment," Adam said.

The girls all gave him knowing looks. On the phone, Katrina sighed. "Poor Stephen."

 

~~~

 

"You know what I think?" Adam told Stephen the next morning, watching him cutely pour milk over his Oat Cluster Cheerios, which he'd _brought with him from home_ , how pathetic was that? It wasn't like the cafeteria had extremely delicious breakfasts or a buffet or anything.

Stephen looked at him. "You can think?"

"Ha, ha. Funny."

"If you throw that apple at me, I'll put my fork in your eye, Pirates-of-the-Caribbean style."

"You will not."

"What is it with you and apple-throwing anyway?"

"Why am I even having breakfast with you?" Adam pondered. "Your eating habits are disgusting."

"Because the girls are all shunning you?"

"I have no idea why," Adam said honestly.

"Where were you last night anyway?"

Adam tried not to notice the barely discernable worry in his voice, or the half-terrified, half-hopeful look in his eyes, but now that he knew what to look for, it wasn't hard to catch. "Not making out with random boys in dark corners, if that's what you're afraid of," he tried to tease.

Stephen didn't look at him at all, reddening. "I wasn't."

"Liar."

"I wasn't."

"Well, I wasn't either," Adam told him, feeling himself flush. It was not something to be proud of, he reminded himself. There was still a palpable lack of sex-action in his life. And it was all Stephen's fault. "There... might have been an emergency convention in Rachael's room," he admitted.

"What?" Stephen frowned. "About what?"

"Uhm. You know. Us?"

"Us? Us what? What are you..." Stephen's eyes grew huge. "You didn't tell them about the... at my parents' house? _Did you_?"

"No, no, they. Wait, I didn't tell them! I thought you did?"

"No, I didn't!"

"Not even Katrina?"

"No, but. Oh God, I'm going to _kill_ Juliana."

"You _told_?"

"Sorry," Stephen said, sheepish. "I really didn't think - I mean. I thought she'd keep it a secret. She can keep secrets fine normally!"

"Oh, well." Adam sighed and stabbed his apple with his knife. "As your punishment, you can go and get me some yogurt."

"Go and get it yourself."

"But it's your punishment!"

"No, it isn't."

And then Adam was interrupted because Kimmie and Ashley and Alissa and all the other girls came up to their table, and they were carrying something that looked suspiciously like a plate full of pink, rainbow-sprinkled muffins (that spelled Happy Birthday, Stephen, when in right order) and then they all said, 'Happy Birthday, Stephen!' in chorus and it was creepy until he realized he was an even bigger loser than he'd assumed he was yesterday. He'd never even asked when Stephen's birthday was and of course, with his luck, it would fall on a day where they were at the same place, sitting across from each other at the breakfast table and he was _burning with shame_.

"I hate you guys," he hissed at Rachael, who said, "Muffin, Adam?" And when he glared some more, said, "Hm. Maybe you should start thinking how to gift wrap yourself."

 

 _I see diamonds in your dreams  
I see pearls around your neck  
I see everything that's beautiful  
Oh everything that's beautiful_

 

The last part of Champs Camp, before it was concluded and they got to fly back home again, was the announcement of the Grand Prix Events. The most annoying thing was that right after he saw that he got SA and Cup of Russia and wanted to be happy about that, he realized that Stephen didn't share either of his events and they'd not see each other much during the fall months. And that he _cared_. It shouldn't matter, he told himself. It was stupid to hope - he hadn't even hoped. He was just... disappointed.

The annoying thing was that he knew exactly what that meant, and he didn't want it to be true.

Stephen cornered him in the elevator on their way back to the room to pack and get ready to drive to the airport. "So," he said.

"I'm sorry," Adam blurted.

"What for?"

"No, I mean. I'm sorry that I didn't know it was your birthday."

"Oh. Oh, that's fine." Stephen shrugged. "I didn't expect you to know." Though he did look slightly hurt, no matter how well he tried to hide it. He was flattening his hair with his palm again, looking at his feet.

"You got China and Japan, right?"

"Wha - oh. You mean. The assignments. Yeah." Stephen looked up, half-smiling. "You were paying attention, huh?"

"I'm only sometimes a jerk," Adam told him.

The rest of the walk to their room, they were silent. But once they were inside, Stephen closed the door and bit his lip. "Rachael told me what the convention was about."

Adam flushed. "I was going to tell you, but they interrupted us."

"I know." Stephen was red in the face too. "I just wanted to tell you that it's not completely true."

Adam's stomach dropped. He felt suddenly sick. "Which - which part?"

"I didn't _plan_ to have sex with you, like, premeditated or anything. I really, I swear I'd never do that. And - I thought you weren't that drunk, otherwise, I'd never have - you know." He sounded slightly bitter. "I'd have preferred for us both to remember it, you see?"

"I remember," Adam said. He remembered tongues sliding together and Stephen fumbling with the condom, nervous and excited, and the taste of latex as he used his mouth to roll it on him, because any other form of help would have embarrassed Stephen. He remembered spreading his legs and guiding Stephen inside with his hand, and then arching his back with every stroke because it felt good, remembered spikes of pleasure up his spine with every thrust. He remembered licking come off Stephen's hand while Stephen watched with huge eyes, and then kissing some more, falling asleep curled up together.

"You said you didn't -"

"I lied."

"Oh. Okay. But - whatever, right?" Stephen shrugged. "It's not like - I mean. Yeah, I wanted that, but I really like you, too, you know? So I tried to get you to like me back. And I guess you do like me, otherwise you wouldn't text me ten times a day and show me your writing or room with me when I gave you, like, a million outs for all of those. But if you don't want a boyfriend - which is what the girls are saying - I get it. I won't be a jerk about it. It's not going to be weird." He swallowed. "It's not like it's more than some stupid... crush... thing."

Adam stared. "What if I change my mind?" He wasn't sure he wanted to. He liked having sex with people. He liked not being held accountable by anyone, having this one area in his life where he had his freedom. But he liked Stephen too. It was just that he hadn't had time to weigh the two against each other, because everything always happened so quickly and maybe he was stupid, because he needed time to process stuff like this. More than a day, in any case.

"Change your mind with what?" Stephen looked at him openly, daring him to spell it out.

"What if I was a bit... hasty on - on the no-boyfriend thing?"

Stephen gave a startled laugh. "I don't think almost nineteen years are 'being hasty'."

"Shut up," Adam said, embarrassed. "I'm a free spirit."

"More like an easy slut."

"An easy slut you'd like to date, fuck you very much."

Stephen smiled. "Take your time."

Adam hesitated. "Really?"

"I've waited this long. I can wait a bit longer."

"That's - that's good. Thanks."

Stephen nodded and went over to his bed. His bag was packed, and he threw his last few things into his backpack: toothbrush, pyjamas, his alarm clock. Adam watched him for ten seconds, then realized he wasn't the type for being shy. He was who he was, and Stephen liked him the way he was, apparently, because he'd not once tried to tell Adam what to do.

Stephen gave a surprised 'oh' when Adam tugged at his arm and made him turn around. Adam stood up on his toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. It was just a peck, and Stephen was too baffled to open up, and Adam wasn't sure he wanted to press for more.

It wasn't wedding bells, exactly, but it felt nice anyway.

"Uhm," Stephen said.

Adam flushed. "Sorry."

"No problem. Though if you say you wanted to taste the merchandise, I think I'll have to smack you."

"No smacking," Adam grinned. "I just - felt like I should."

"Oh. Okay?"

"Because, like. Happy Birthday?"

Stephen flushed bright red. "Thanks."

 

 _And I, I wish I was the one,  
You lonely lonely son and you looked at me that way  
I wish for long lingering glances  
Fairytale romances every single day  
And you look at me and say I'm your best friend every day  
But I wish for something, wish for something more  
Oh I love you like a friend, but lets not pretend  
How I wish for something more._

 

Epilogue:

 

If Adam had known from the start that Stephen's parents had a steady rental on a house up in Salisbury Beach, the whole drama about being boyfriends wouldn't have taken a minute.

Also, when he got back to Hackensack, the following exchange took place over the internet:

 **iownthegayboys (23:06:01)** : so, Adam, let me ask you a question  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (23:06:15)** : Katrina, that you? your IM name is stupid  
 **iownthegayboys (23:06:20)** : ... says the guy who calls himself goldilocks  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (23:07:02)** : ... incidentally, that's all my little sister's fault  
 **iownthegayboys (23:07:09)** : *eyeroll*  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (23:07:20)** : what's up?  
 **iownthegayboys (23:07:50)** : okay, first the threat: if you break Stephen's heart? I will not be responsible for my actions. I own high heels and no matter how big a slut you are, they will not feel good up your ass.  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (23:08:25)** : Katrina!  
 **iownthegayboys (23:09:01)** : and now for the question.  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (23:09:15)** : I hate you.  
 **iownthegayboys (23:09:40)** : How many people since Stephen?  
 **iownthegayboys (23:12:23)** : How many people since Stephen, Adam.  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (23:12:30)** : None of your business.  
 **iownthegayboys (23:12:43)** : I fucking _knew_ it! Well done, sweetie. Love you!  
 **goldilocks_on_sk8s (23:12:30)** : Fuck off.

Which she did.

The next morning, Stephen got a text message saying,

 _want2have sex/u. all the time._

Which was all Stephen was getting.

Well, until Stephen told him to get his ass up to Salisbury Beach, and they found out the master bedroom had a four-poster bed. There might have been an "oh god, Stephen, I think I love you" among the whoops and laughter as they tried out the springs.


	3. that two-way ticket on your knees - part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the second 'chapter' of the story :)

At first, Adam was reluctant about the whole thing. A vacation was a nice idea in theory, but they were figure skaters. The reality was, there was no such thing as a vacation that lasted longer than twenty-four hours. And even those were rather rare. So four or five days spent in a summer beach house in Salisbury seemed more like utopia than a possibility.

On the other hand, it was already rented, so it would be a shame to throw the opportunity away. And Stephen would be there. Thinking about that made Adam's heart beat a little faster and his stomach tighten in a pleasant, tingly way he'd never felt before.

In the end, he agreed because his mom told him he should. She seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, in any case, and told him that if the thought of spending a few uninterrupted days with Stephen made him so happy, then the real thing would be even better. Except her words were a lot sappier and tinged with that indulging little smile she'd used on his brother when he'd admitted to having a crush a few months ago.

The worst thing about it was that he hadn't been able escape, because at that time he'd been lying in bed with hurting, puffed-up cheeks, looking pathetic. It was worse than the pain after the procedure, and getting your wisdom teeth pulled was no fun experience.

"Not in July," he told Stephen on the phone after he'd talked to Nikolai. "Sorry. He's planning to make a few of the others and me do some 'pre-season altitude training'. He doesn't want to say what that's about, but I have a feeling it'll leave me exhausted, so afterwards would be just perfect to have a vacation. In the beginning of August?"

Stephen was silent for ten seconds then hummed. "Sounds good. I'll have to talk to Peter and Mark but I don't think I have anything planned yet for like, fifth to ninth?"

Adam checked his calendar. "Great."

"Awesome."

"What kind of house is it?"

Stephen laughed into his ear, making Adam shiver. "Do you want the complete prospectus or is a short blurb okay? It's two bedrooms and a sitting room, kitchen and bathroom kind of place. Cozy, so you probably won't like it, because you have no romantic bone in your body -"

"- Hey!"

"What?"

"Nothing." Adam grinned. "I'm plenty romantic if I want to be, you'll see."

"Uh-huh. There's also a whole lot of sand right from the doorstep to the ocean, which is about two hundred feet away. And the town is awesome. There's an amusement park and video arcades and all that."

Adam shifted his weight onto the other leg. "Are you sure it's okay for us to go there?"

"Yeah? I mean. We know the people it belongs to, they're good friends of my parents', and they're not using it the whole summer, so we can stay there, as long as we keep the place clean and don't break anything."

"But, it's like. You're still paying for it, right, and - you never even said how much it costs and it's probably a lot, which. I'll try to pay you back half? But I'm not sure -"

"Don't be an asshole," Stephen said, sounding annoyed. "I told you, it's not a big deal. If we weren't going, my parents would have it rented anyway and it'd just be empty all August."

"You work, right?"

"What?"

"I just - you told me once, I remember, you coach kids and work in that store that sells skating things, right?"

"Yes?" He could hear Stephen blink.

"Why?"

"Why do I work there?"

"Yeah."

"Because it's good experience and I can use the money? Oh. Oh, I see where this is going."

"I didn't mean to -"

Stephen scoffed, interrupting him mid-sentence. "Of course you meant to. You can just ask, all right? I'm not going to take your head off, and I thought you were all proud of your ability to ask pushy questions." But before Adam could reply, he was already carrying on. "And yeah, my parents have money. But they're not sharing." The last bit was said in a teasing enough tone so Adam didn't feel too bad about it.

"They're sharing their summer rental to give us a vacation," he offered.

Stephen hummed again. "Does that mean we're going to go and enjoy ourselves now without you having dark emo thoughts of despair?"

"I do not have dark emo - wait, what the fuck that does even _mean_?"

"I have no idea." Stephen laughed.

"Yeah, fine. I'll go book a flight. Pick me up at the airport?"

"Text me your arrival time. And don't bring a lot of luggage."

"What?"

Stephen's laugh was warm and turned his stomach again. "Not like you'll be wearing a lot most of the time."

~~~

 

Adam had never been to Salisbury before. He was surprised by the small-town feel that was completely different from what he knew from Scranton, or Hackensack or most other cities or towns he'd been to. It was actually a lot more like Clarks Summit than anything, which made Adam smile. He liked small towns better, anyway. He looked out the window as they drove from the airport to the summer house and tried to catch as much on first glance as he could. Stephen hadn't lied. It was a lovely town, and there were a lot of arcades and bars on the main street, restaurants, little cafés, the odd Starbucks.

"Stop putting your head out the window," Stephen told him when he glanced over once and realized what Adam was doing. "People'll think you're my dog."

Adam pulled his head in and grinned. "It's refreshing. The ocean breeze, the smell of car oil -"

"There is no smell of oil around my car."

"Destroy my lyricism, why don't you."

"How's that going anyway?" Stephen took a rather sharp turn right, braking when he realized another car was in front of him.

"It's... okay. Some of the stuff I wanted to put in didn't work out. Like fireballs falling from the sky. Apparently, it's not as easily put into words as it seems from the movies. And, like. I was thinking, maybe I should skip the odd fifteen to twenty years after my heroine dies, in the first quarter? Because writing about a baby is really boring."

"Reading about a baby is boring too," Stephen smiled. "And hey, you can always take into account the changes in the world. Like, obviously, I have no idea about the basic geology but I've heard all the plants and animals would die out if a meteor hit the earth?"

"It's not going to be that big a meteor," Adam told him.

"Right."

"Stop grinning."

"I'm not!"

"I can see you grinning. It's not funny. But I can't let humanity die out, what a boring story would it be if the meteor was big enough to wipe out all living things?"

"You could write a book about cockroaches," Stephen philosophized.

"You hate cockroaches."

"That doesn't mean they don't deserve a voice."

Adam snorted and looked out the window again. Stephen hadn't even kissed him when picking him up. He'd just holstered one of Adam's bags over his shoulders, rolling his eyes at the amount of baggage Adam needed for five days ("two bags, Adam? really?") and then they'd made their way to the car, accompanied by idle chatter about Andorra and the last few weeks of skating.

Luckily, they arrived a minute later, and Adam was spared the embarrassment of having to find a conversation topic that wasn't all about how much he really wanted to kiss Stephen. Or do other, much more filthy things to him. He was thinking with his dick again. It was not the brightest idea he'd ever had.

The house was... cozy. Stephen had found the one word that fitted, it was small, smaller than Adam'd imagined from the amount of rooms, but it had a lovely patio and front door and it was in really good shape, with ivy and vines climbing the stone walls.

"Come on, then," Stephen said and killed the car engine. He'd brought only one bag, and Adam had to fight to take his own, because Stephen made half a grab for one of his as well.

"I can carry my own stuff, you know," he said, a little sharper than intended.

Stephen opened his mouth, then inhaled and let it go. "Fine. Let me know if you need help."

"I won't. Better lock the doors and get the key."

The insides of the house were paneled with wood. The living room was immediately upon entrance, with stairs leading up to the bedrooms. The fireplace was prominent, but so was the huge library-like bookshelf that took in almost the whole south wall, stacked with books, DVDs and CDs.

Adam turned to Stephen. He saw the beginnings of a smile on his lips, but also realized that Stephen'd been watching him, judging his reaction, almost like he was trying to find out whether Adam was all right. "Where to?" he asked, trying for casual.

He must have sounded fine, because Stephen nodded towards the stairs. "Up." He hesitated, which made Adam stop as well instead of hurrying towards the bedroom as planned. "I - like I said, there are two, so if you want one for yourself, I can take the other and -"

"What?" Adam blinked.

"It's just..." Stephen trailed off, shrugging.

Adam's stomach tightened, but not in the good way this time. There was a sensation of dread that washed over him and he tried to keep it out of his voice when he asked, "Does this mean you don't actually want to be together?"

Stephen put his bag down. "Define together."

"I wrote you -"

"You wrote me saying you want to have sex with me."

"And you wrote back that you're looking forward to it!"

"Which I am." Stephen gave him a look that said he was clearly an idiot. "I'm not happy with - I mean - it wouldn't be what I _want_ , but if you can only be like, with the buddy sex, I guess I'd have to live with that."

Adam breathed in, something in his chest loosening. "Because you like me."

Stephen smiled sweetly. "I like you a lot."

"So I don't get what the problem is."

"The problem is that you still haven't said what you want."

"I want - I want for us to stop talking and go upstairs and unpack our things, in the same room, and then I want to fuck you until your brain's melted out through your ears."

For a split second, he saw Stephen press his lips together, but then his whole stance relaxed and he gave Adam another smile. "That sounds good to me."

~~~

 

He didn't expect Stephen to just go for it. They found the master bedroom, and Adam was still staring at the giant four poster bed with slightly open mouth when Stephen put his arms around him from behind, pulled him up to his body and made him turn his head to merge their mouths together.

Stephen tasted like bubble gum with cherry and his tongue slipped between Adam's lips when Adam opened them, closing his eyes. He could feel Stephen's dick grow half-hard against his butt, rubbing up against him from behind, arms still like a metal lock, never budging.

"You really wanna do this?" he asked, breathless, when Stephen let his mouth go to lick the shell of his ear, making Adam shudder as sparks lit up his spine.

"You don't?"

"I - want," Adam managed, because Stephen's hand was clumsily patting down the front of his shorts, the other vanishing beneath the t-shirt to explore Adam's chest. "More," he demanded.

"On the bed?" Stephen asked, creating more friction for his dick when his hands settled on Adam's hips and pulled him back, closing the last inch of space between them. Adam could feel the hard outline of it against his ass and fought not to lose control, because it felt _so good_ to have this again, and he hadn't had a dick inside him in forever, so if he lost it, Stephen might end up tied to the bedposts while Adam helped himself to whatever he needed.

Instead, he jerked free of Stephen's grip, not so tight anymore, and stepped towards the bed until he was half-kneeling on it. He pushed his thumbs underneath his waistband slowly. His shorts went down, along with his underwear, over his hard cock and down his legs, and he bent over to work it over his feet.

Stephen was watching him, tongue between his teeth as he touched his own dick through his pants, and when their gazes met, Stephen quirked a smile that was tinged with desire and said, "You are such a show-off."

Adam felt himself flush, and his dick grew harder when he saw Stephen's eyes flicker down to it, hungry. "Take off your clothes, too," he said. He drew his shirt over his head, which left him completely naked. The air was crisp and hot around him, had been all day, and his lips were dry again. Stephen made short work of his clothes, quickly undressed, and was pushing him back onto the bed by his shoulders while they kissed. Stephen's mouth was wet and warm.

Before they could get all carried away, however, Stephen still standing, spreading Adam's legs apart with his hand running up his thigh to his dick, Adam stopped him with a hand to his wrist. Stephen made a confused sound and dropped forward, sliding their chests together as he kissed the corner of Adam's mouth.

"Lube," Adam reminded him. And condoms were another good idea.

Thankfully, Stephen seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because he immediately straightened. Adam mourned the press of an erection against his own, slightly sticky and wet-hot like Stephen's mouth. When Stephen returned, he was carrying lube and condoms, and Adam had scrambled up on the bed so that his head was resting on the pillows, legs still spread with his hand on his dick, jerking himself off in languid, even strokes.

"You're..."

"Amazing?" Adam teased, gasping when Stephen kissed his knee.

"Impossible," Stephen finished, rolling his eyes. His kisses were trailing down Adam's bent thigh, hesitant now, no longer as forward as he'd been before.

Adam spread his legs wider, burying his fingers in Stephen's short-clipped hair. "Have you ever?" he asked, just to make sure.

"What?" Stephen lifted his head to look at him.

"Blown a guy?"

"Uhm."

"I'll take that as a no -"

"I - tried. But it was. I don't think I got the hang of it?"

"Just go slow." Adam grinned down at him, and tugged at the back of his neck. "And keep your teeth away from my dick."

Stephen nodded; he didn't answer the grin, just concentrated on Adam's dick and bent down, eyelashes fluttering with nerves before he wrapped his lips around the head and sucked once with a little sound in the back of his throat.

Adam let himself fall back into the pillows with a gasp and let go of Stephen's head, buried his fingers in the sheets instead. They smelled fresh, of laundry and lavender. "I..." he groaned when Stephen experimentally slid his tongue down the underside of his dick, "I used to - have stamina, y'know?"

Stephen drew away from him, lips red and puffy. He was smiling. "What happened to it?"

"No sex in months," Adam told him. "Not recommended."

Stephen's smile widened and sparks shot off in Adam's chest that had nothing at all to do with the sex and everything to do with the look in Stephen's eyes. "We'll have to remedy that situation," he said decisively.

"Please."

Stephen went back down, took him deeper this time, making a gurgling little sound of pain.

"No, don't - don't try that yet," Adam quickly said, getting back up on his elbows to see Stephen blink a little tear away. He grimaced. "Teeth."

Stephen pulled off again. "Sorry."

"It was good before. With the - yeah, that's fine, _oh_." He bit his lower lip when Stephen did something with his tongue, surprising them both. "Just - your hand. Do that more and - and use your hands and - oh. Oh, shit." He moaned and threw his head back, baring his neck in pleasure.

It seemed like the explanation was good enough for now. Stephen left the deep-throating alone - always the fucking perfectionist, Adam thought in half-irritation, half-amusement - and continued licking, swallowing around him as his sharp little tongue dragged over the slit, remembering Adam had liked that. His hand closed around the base of Adam's dick, tugging now and then, mostly just squeezing. Adam found himself panting into the pillow with his face half-turned, moaning whenever Stephen did something enthusiastically creative with his tongue or squeezed a little harder with his hand, and at some point he even licked over said hand to get it wet so it'd feel better for Adam.

It really had been a while. Jerking off didn't even come close to feeling a mouth around him, sloppy and a little rough and oh so good. He felt his toes curl into the sheets, tried hard to resist closing his legs around Stephen's neck to pull him down, rock his hips up to shove his dick down his throat. He had more control than that, he'd learned very early on that that kind of behavior led to no future blowjobs, but it was still very, very hard.

He could feel Stephen swallow again, could feel himself leaking into his mouth, and bit down on another moan, managed to say, "Stephen - I'm - _oh_ -" before he was coming, and Stephen hadn't pulled off, swallowing through that, too.

"Oh, wow," Adam said, blinking, trying to evaluate while Stephen rolled over his leg and to his side, curling up beside him. It hadn't been too intense, but it had been pretty fucking good. Better than expected, definitely. "You -" He blinked again. Then he smiled and leaned down for a kiss, which Stephen gave, looking relieved. He tasted of come, Adam's come, which was almost hot enough to send his sensitive cock back into hardness. "You ate my come," Adam giggled.

"Shut up," Stephen told him, flushing red-hot. "I didn't mean to."

That only made the laughter worse. "Did it taste good? Are you addicted to my jizz now?"

Stephen hit him lightly on the chest, but he didn't protest, so Adam figured he wasn't revolted; which was good, because it would be a bummer if Stephen turned out to really hate giving head.

They stayed lying side by side for a while, quietly making out, naked and touching, exploring patches of skin that hadn't been so easily accessible before. Adam licked Stephen's collarbone and over his nipples, sucking lightly and tasting the salty sweat on his tongue, and he also got Stephen hard again.

"So, who was it?" Adam finally asked when he had Stephen panting under his hands, heartbeat quickening.

"What?"

"The guy. The blowjob that didn't work out."

Stephen colored again. "Just a guy at the rink."

Adam grinned and pushed him onto his back with a quick shove. The bed was huge enough that they could have easily rolled over another time without falling off. It was brilliant. However, he didn't plan on falling off the bed anytime soon and instead settled on straddling Stephen's thighs. "You're the worst liar I've ever met. Who was it?"

Stephen stubbornly raised his chin and refused to answer.

"Fine," Adam said, leaning down to peck his mouth. "Keep your secrets." But instead of taking off, like he could see Stephen expected, he moved his lips to his ear and whispered, "You can fuck me now, if you want."

Stephen's inhale was sharp and clearly audible.

"You remember how, right?"

"Like... like last time?" Stephen asked, looking up at him.

The thought of Stephen's dick moving inside him, filling him up again, made Adam swallow. But... "Not quite," he said and pushed his hips forward to bring their erections together, making Stephen gasp at the sudden touch. His hand closed around them both and he rubbed a bit, biting his lip, rocking forward. Stephen got it at one, rocked up into his hand, creating an easy rhythm it took years of jerking off to perfect.

Then, suddenly, Adam let go and fell back into the pillow to Stephen's left, snorting with laughter. "Oh, oh god, I should have know."

"What?" It took Stephen a while to gather his thoughts, before he was up on his elbow, staring down at Adam in disbelief. "What is it _now_?" There was also a sharp tone to his voice that told Adam that he was maybe pushing things too much. It was one thing to tease someone who was experienced and good enough at this to joke back. But there was a very tangible air of insecurity about Stephen.

Adam sobered. He reached up and touched Stephen's cheek, smiling at him as gently as he could, the heat comfortable against his palm. "It was a girl, wasn't it."

Stephen pulled away, sitting up on his knees. "What _is_ this?" he asked, clearly annoyed now. "Do you see me asking about your sexual history till back in the Trojan War?"

"Don't be like that." Adam sat up as well, pulling his knees against his chest.

"And it's a good thing I don't," Stephen continued, sharp. "Because we might be sitting here till the end of our vacation if you started listing everyone you've put out for."

Adam's smile dimmed, but he was smart enough to not take the bait. "I was just curious," he said. "I'm sorry it's such a sore spot. I'm not ashamed of my experiences, and you know what? You shouldn't be of yours."

Stephen pressed his lips together. "I don't want to be..." He trailed off.

Adam narrowed his eyes.

"Fine," Stephen breathed out. "It was a girl, fine? My first few times were with a girl, and before you let me fuck you, I didn't - not with a boy. Happy?"

"Nope." Adam tried a smile, one of the sunny ones that always melted someone's bad mood, no matter what was going on. It seemed to work with Stephen, too, because the tense line of his shoulders relaxed a fraction, and he didn't seem as close to bolting anymore. "I'll be happy once I've shown you how to _make_ me happy by fucking me until I can't spell my own name," he proclaimed.

Stephen reluctantly returned the smile. "I thought you'd mind," he admitted.

Adam considered this. "I guess it's - it would be easier, if you knew all about it already? But sex's pretty easy to learn anyway. The blowjob thing's the hardest part, or like, deep-throating takes lots of practice. But don't worry about it, really."

"But -"

"And I'll fuck you sometime, and it's a bit scary the first time, but it's all just warm-up and muscle control and the skaters I've done this with - the few who hadn't done it before with a guy - were all really quick studies."

"Right." Stephen blinked. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

Adam grinned. "Not a bit."

"Liar."

"It's sex, you know? Like, in my experience, as long as one person knows what to do, it's never _bad_? And if it's not bad, it's worth doing it again, so long until it's spectacular." Adam's grin widened. "Like skating."

That surprised a laugh out of Stephen. "Fine," he then said. "So, like. I remember from the last time, and I - I should get the condom part right this time?"

Adam laughed, delighted. "Did you practice?"

"Shut up."

"Okay, okay, I'll stop teasing you. Just - let's wait with the condom for a while, okay? First, fingers. Last time, you didn't need to do that because last time, I'd - never mind. Let's just say this is a part that's best not to skip, especially if you're not having sex like, all the time, because otherwise, it hurts."

"Right." Stephen nodded. "Stretching. I forgot."

"Yep. Wow, someone's done some homework."

"Didn't I tell you to shut up like, oh, two seconds ago?"

Adam licked his lips and watched Stephen hunt down the lube before opening the bottle and squeezing some on his fingers. Then he leaned forward, kissed Stephen deeply, just to feel their tongues touch once more before he tugged him along by the back of his neck as he fell backwards again. They kissed for half a minute before Adam parted their mouths and said, "Okay. Now, your fingers, my ass."

It was weird, because some guys Adam'd done this with had hated this part, like it was somehow weirder to touch his insides with their fingers, slipping them in one by one, than with their dicks. But Stephen didn't look disgusted or weirded out, just curious, when Adam pulled his right knee up to his chest and planed his left heel firmly into the mattress, leg bent. Adam kept watching his face as he traced his fingers behind Adam's dick and then circled his hole with one finger only.

"It's fine," Adam told him. "Go for it."

He relaxed his muscles at the first press, closed his eyes and breathed in, opening up like he'd done so many times before. The first stretch was always a strange sensation of stinging pain and nerve-wracking pleasure, all his nerves afire, sending signals up his spine, and then Stephen's slicked finger was in to the first knuckle and it felt - really, really good. Adam wriggled and tried to make him go deeper.

Stephen exhaled on a bout of badly hidden laughter. "You look -"

Adam grunted and pushed down harder. "Don't. Just - more?"

"Already?"

"It's fine, I - _shit_." And there went the second, slipping in almost easily beside the first because he'd been distracted and the additional stretch made him purr deeply in his chest, wanting the feeling deeper, to fill him up.

"You okay?" Stephen asked, leaning down to kiss the corner of his lips. His fingers were sliding in and out, to the second knuckle now, and Adam felt himself take a deep breath because this was it, all full and -

"Crook," he managed to gasp. "Crook your fingers? Just a little? Up." His cock had long ago realized something very interesting was going on again and taken note, well on its way to full hardness again. This wasn't unusual, exactly, because it had probably been half an hour since he'd come, maybe longer, but the intensity of the press of Stephen's fingers, combined with the sweetness of the touch, made it so much better than the blowjob before that he thought he might just come before Stephen got his dick anywhere near his ass.

Then Stephen hit exactly the right spot and Adam thought for a second he'd just lost it. His mouth fell open, he squeezed his eyes shut as a wave of pleasure washed over him, but he held on, barely, his cock straining against his stomach, untouched. If Stephen'd touched it, he would have been gone, and that would have been embarrassingly quick.

"That was good, huh?" Stephen asked, smiling down and kissing him again, deeper this time when Adam opened his mouth and licked his lower lip. His fingers crooked again, exact same spot, making Adam's muscles contract for a second time. "You really, really like this."

Adam opened his eyes and stared up at the _unbelievably_ cheeky grin that had taken over Stephen's features. "I'm going to kill you," he pressed out, voice deep and hoarse with desire.

Stephen's grin grew even happier, and then his face was gone and Adam breathed out, hitting the pillows with a moan when Stephen pulled his fingers out, only the fingertips resting against his hole now. "Do I, like - three?" he asked, uncertain, from somewhere down, and yeah, definitely down there, possibly looking at his fingers pressed up against Adam, and there was a push to his right leg, getting it even more out of the way for better view, and okay, that, that made even Adam flush brightly because nobody was ever that interested in just watching him take fingers. Mostly, it was just about getting some dick up there.

"Uhm," he said unintelligibly

"Oh." Stephen seemed to be getting more lube on his fingers, and also some on his dick when he jerked himself a few times to relieve some pressure. "I - I might be having to... soon, though?"

"Yesss," Adam hissed. "Soon would be good." He almost whimpered when Stephen slid his fingers back in, then started working the third one inside. Almost. Or maybe he did, but he certainly wouldn't admit to it. He just knew that the stretch was fantastic, sent a shiver through his body.

It helped that he'd come, before, otherwise he wouldn't have held out this long. Stephen looked - focused, and determined, and also very much like he was trying to ignore his dick and its immediate demands. And then Adam noticed him glancing up, and their gazes met and Stephen _grinned_ , again, the bastard, and Adam wanted to kill him because this was obviously torture designed to make him grind down and ask for more, _beg_ for more.

"Fucking - fuck me," he said, mouth falling open when Stephen nailed his prostate again.

Stephen looked at him, clear-eyed and _amused_ as his hips jerked into the touch, down, to get his fingers deeper. "Magic word," he teased.

"Fuck you," Adam gasped.

"Not that one."

"'m gonna come," Adam threatened. "And then - you - you're so not fucking me."

Stephen started pulling his fingers out. Adam whimpered at the loss, willing his hips to still, but when he wanted to lower his leg from his chest, Stephen's hand was there, pressing it back up against his chest. He hovered for a second before he leaned down to kiss Adam more, licking at his lips until he opened his mouth and allowed his tongue to slip inside.

"Please," Adam gave in, staring up once they'd parted. "Fucking please, will you now finally get your _fucking_ dick in me."

Stephen kissed him again, but Adam also felt the blunt nudge of his cock as he positioned himself, exactly like Adam'd done for him last time, and Adam had no idea when he'd managed to put the condom on but it was there, and slicked, and that was all that mattered.

The warm-up helped and in the end, it was an easy slide. He was glad, because he had a feeling, with Stephen panting harshly above him, supporting himself on his arms, that they both wouldn't last very long past the initial push.

"You're - god," Stephen groaned, and then he was in and settled, their chests sliding together when he laid down on top of Adam, trapping Adam's cock between their bodies, finally giving him that long-deserved friction for it. "That..."

Adam hummed, and closed his legs around Stephen's hips to pull him impossibly closer, to get him in even deeper, or maybe to make him fucking _move_. The angle was a bit strange, he hardly ever did it like this, it tended to be better on his stomach, or on hands and knees, the penetration deeper, the strokes more controlled, but Stephen finally drew his hips back and rocked forward, a lot more force behind the movement than Adam'd expected, and it sent him reeling, especially when he repeated it, twice, three times, before the motion got more shallow, faster, in rhythm with Stephen's quick intakes of breath.

The drag was gorgeous, Stephen's dick too big in his ass, always too big that first time, and he didn't even want to think about doing this again in the next few hours, because he already knew he'd be so fucking sore, but it felt _so good_ , to have him inside, buried deep and filling him up.

"I -" Stephen started, his hand on Adam's forehead, pushing him back so he could kiss him, short and quick, in sync with the thrusts into Adam's body, and Adam mouthed, " _More_ ," so Stephen gasped, said, "Fuck," and his right slipped between their bodies as his hips moved a little faster, fucking him deeper than before, and Adam had no idea how that was even possible, except now there was also a hand on his dick, and two tugs were enough to send him off into bliss and he came between them, Stephen's hand stilling.

"You came," he gasped, and this time, among the arousal, there was a hint of laughter, "from just - oh _god_."

Adam managed to summon the energy to glare up at him, face burning, and he clamped down with his muscles, tensing his whole body and was gratified to hear Stephen moan wildly, especially when he tilted his hips to make it even better. He felt Stephen come inside him, the shudder and complete tightening of his body, breathing like after a free skate that meant a gold medal for sure, and Adam relaxed, finally, letting his own body go and loosening every muscle, the tension draining away now that they were both done.

Stephen pulled out pretty fast. Adam winced, both at the pain and soreness, and at the sudden loss, wishing - but then he remembered that they could do that again, and as soon as he wanted and it wasn't so bad to watch Stephen get rid of the condom and fall into the mattress beside him, his hand on Adam's chest.

Both their stomachs were sticky, but for once, with his arms and legs liquidized and his mind swimming, he couldn't care. Stephen didn't seem to mind, in any case, because he just kissed Adam's shoulder and said, "That was..." and didn't really specify what that had been.

Adam smiled and yawned. It was good that it was hot, he pondered, otherwise they'd have to get under the covers, but like this, they could just skid together a few inches and Adam could put his chin on Stephen's collarbone, and it wasn't cold at all.

 

~~~


	4. that two-way ticket on your knees - part 2

Adam yawned and stroked Stephen's dick slowly with his fingers. It wasn't meant to be stimulating, despite the fact that Stephen was half-hard in his hand; he just liked the touch, and heat and the feeling of skin against his palm. Stephen arched his back and trailed his fingers over the soft hairs on Adam's forearm.

"That feels good," he sighed into his pillow, turning to look at Adam curiously.

"I know," Adam said. He smiled up through half-lidded eyes. "You can fuck me again soon if you want."

Stephen's dick immediately hardened at the words, but Stephen just gave him a look and shrugged with a half-nod. "Only if you want to. I don't mind this."

"Of course you don't." Adam's lips quirked. "I give splendid handjobs."

Stephen nodded and gasped when Adam's thumb trailed over the head of his cock.

"I'm nosy," Adam told him quietly, like it was a secret. He wriggled closer to Stephen, leg between Stephen's as their chests touched, and put his forehead against Stephen's neck. "You should tell me who popped your cherry."

Stephen groaned and pushed him away. "Come on."

"No, seriously, I just want to know." Adam went for his dick again. "I don't care if it was Katrina."

Stephen gaped. "What? No! Oh my _god_ , she's like - and no!"

"Huh. She sounded like she was in charge of like, fucking all the fairy boys in Boston at least once before sending them off on their big gay journey."

"Are you calling her a slut?"

"Uh, she is one? It's not like that's a bad thing!"

Stephen fell back into his pillow, laughing. "Of course not."

"So?"

"So what - oh. You mean. Uhm." Adam could feel Stephen's blush against his own cheek when he leaned closer, pushing their faces together. Stephen felt hot and desperate, and he smelled nice. "Juliana. You know?"

"What - oh. _Oh_ , that makes so much sense."

Stephen blinked, eyelashes brushing against Adam's nose. "It does?"

Adam giggled. "Ashley wanted to have a go with you. But then Katrina told her Juliana'd done you and she was all disappointed. Actually, Alexe might have been too. You should offer them all a turn. Since you're so good with girls."

"Oh, shut up." Stephen didn't sound mad, which was something.

Adam licked his jaw. "You like boys, though, right?"

Stephen pulled away just far enough to be able to look him in the face. "I'm in bed. With you. You seem, all rumors to the contrary, to be a boy." The proof was poking his thigh, after all. "And I like your dick."

"Nice." Adam grinned.

"Not that you need the boost. You've got a big enough head as it is."

"Hey!"

Stephen rolled his eyes and pulled him into a kiss, breathing shallowly. Their chests slid together, their erections rubbed between their bellies. Then Adam wrapped his hand around them and started stroking for real, hard and fast, with an easy rhythm that he knew would make them both come quickly.

"I - thought..."

Adam licked the corner of Stephen's mouth and sucked on his lip. "What?"

"I thought you - wanted - not just - _god_."

Adam's eyes sparked. "Change of plans."

"What?" Stephen asked, flabbergasted.

Adam let go of both their cocks, slid his tongue over Stephen's before he dove down, closing his lips over Stephen's erection with a wet, sucking sound. He swallowed him down, hot and almost too big, enjoying the heavy weight on his tongue, the stretch of his lips as he swallowed around it again. He started to pull off slowly, went back down, pulled off and the shocked sounds coming from Stephen above made him smile around the dick in his mouth. Little whimpers escaped Stephen. Adam held Stephens' hips still as he moved his head down, taking it as far as he could, the head of Stephen's dick sliding against the roof of his mouth.

"Fuck," Stephen said, with feeling. "I could - fuck, could have _kicked you in the teeth_ , fucking _hell_ -"

Adam chuckled around Stephen's dick, and felt him groan, spreading his legs to give Adam better access. Then Adam drew back completely. He could feel Stephen's eyes on him as he lifted his chin, grinning, licking his lips.

Stephen whimpered again. "You're trying to _kill_ me, is that it?" he asked, desperate, reaching for his own dick to get himself off, or at least relieve the pressure a little. "Trying to eliminate the competition by means of _breaking their brains with sex_."

"Now there's an evil plan I wouldn't have come up with," Adam teased.

"Oh, shut up." Stephen buried his hand in Adam's hair and stroked over it gently enough that Adam startled. He'd expected to get dragged right back onto Stephen's dick. "Please?"

"Well." Adam smiled, pushing his head against his hand with a purr. "Since you asked so nicely."

He liked the taste - it was always hard work, but it was work he was proud to be good at. He had serious skills, twisting his tongue around the head as he sucked steadily, using his hands to play with Stephen's balls. Stephen made lovely little sounds, varying the occasional "please, Adam" with moans, little " _oh_ "s or curses when Adam tongued the tip of his cock.

Finally, he pulled away, just as Stephen was growing close to orgasm; he could tell by the way Stephen's thighs were tightly-strung, trying to keep from moving his hips, the way his body pulsed under Adam's palms, his sounds getting more desperate the longer Adam held off.

"Wait till you're down my throat," he said when Stephen touched his lip with his thumb, reaching down to caress his cheek and beg him for more. "Okay?"

Stephen nodded, okay.

"Then you can fuck my mouth. Just not too fast. I'll keep my hands on your hips."

Stephen stared, made a desperate noise in the back of his throat, and nodded again. "Adam -"

"Yeah?"

"You don't have to -"

"It's fine." Adam grinned, enjoying the sting of pain from the stretch of his abused lips. "I like the feeling. Be careful, though." Then he went down again, feeling the push, more stretch of his jaw, then the bump against the back of his throat and swallowing. It was easier by now, after so many times doing this before, and he'd already started out a natural at this - after a few times, without much gagging even.

Stephen kept his word. He looked like he was going to faint, pale and red-faced at the same time, biting his lip so hard Adam thought he might bleed, but he caught the cue when Adam squeezed his hips with his hands; he pushed forward before rocking back an inch, and quickened the pace, two inches, back and forth, fucking Adam's throat in even, controlled thrusts. Adam closed his eyes and just let it roll over him, that sensation of pleasure and pride in his belly that he was doing this to Stephen, that he was causing those sounds, that hitching in Stephen's breath every time he swallowed around him. He tried to just sense, the taste, a little salty, but mostly like skin, and he liked the scent of sweat and come and sex, it kept him aroused, keeping him hard and turned on as Stephen got close, pushing harder, not quite as careful anymore, but still controlled.

Adam warned him to slow down, fingernails biting into Stephen's hips, and Stephen said, "Adam, I -" and rocked up once, twice more before he came, spilling into Adam's mouth and down his throat, riding it out while Adam swallowed around him, trying to breathe at the same time.

Stephen stilled finally, no longer moving, and Adam let Stephen's softening dick slide out between his lips, licking up the last drops before leaving it completely, running the back of his hand over his mouth. Then he lay down as well, a few inches away from the warm body next to him, on his back, enjoying the soft buzzing beneath his skin he always got when he knew he'd just blown someone's brain away.

It didn't last as long as he had wished it would this time. A few minutes - maybe ten, maybe fifteen - then Stephen slowly moved, awkwardly shifting into a more comfortable position. When Adam glanced over, he was staring at the curtains around the four-poster bed, not looking at Adam. There was a strange expression on his face that made Adam's insides churn.

"What?" he asked, hoarse.

Stephen shook his head.

"Just _say_ it."

The tone sent Stephen's hackles up about the same way Stephen's expression had done Adam's. "You're good at that," Stephen said, no inflection whatsoever, which was a considerable feat seeing as his eyes were narrowed in annoyance at Adam's insistent pushiness.

Adam's gut coiled tight. "Yes," he said slowly. "So I gathered." When Stephen still didn't look at him, he sat up. "I'm going to go to the beach."

"Adam."

Adam walked through the bedroom door and out into the hallway, naked, sweat clinging, sticky, to his skin. He felt like his body language might have told Stephen something about not wanting to be bothered right now, but Stephen was either blind to it or choose to overlook it. He caught Adam's hand and held him back.

"I didn't say a word," he said.

"You didn't need to."

"Because you know me so fucking well." Stephen was starting to look pissed.

"You know, Stephen, the only time I like to go in circles is at the rink."

"Stop being such a jerk! I was just wondering, I wasn't accusing you of anything, and even if, since when do you care what anyone thinks of you?"

Adam shrugged out of his grasp. "I don't."

"That's not how you're acting."

"How am I acting?"

"Like you're trying your hardest to provoke a fight so you don't have to spend a second longer in a room with me. What the fuck, Adam?"

Adam rolled his eyes. "I'm going to have a shower, get rid of this"- he pointed to his half-hard cock -"and then I'm going to go to the beach and maybe hit some clubs afterwards. You can do whatever you like." He threw up his hands. "There you go, see how much I care?"

"You're such a dick," Stephen told him as he walked off towards the bathroom.

"Tell me something I haven't heard before," Adam replied dryly.

 

~*~

 

Stephen didn't follow him into the shower, not that Adam had expected him to, and Adam only became uncomfortably aware of the fact that he had no key to the house and no way to get around town when he was well past the door, walking towards the beach.

There were people everywhere, but not nearly as many as he'd expected this close to the ocean. Some had towels out, girls were lying in tiny bikinis, tanning, a couple of boys further down the shore were playing soccer, some couples lying on beach chairs or sharing blankets. There were people in the sea, swimming out towards the horizon, or close to the beach, just letting the water wash over their feet; a couple of kids were busy shrieking and building sandcastles.

He found a spot to sit by himself. He hadn't brought his trunks so he stayed for a while in the sand, letting it slide through his fingers, before he got back up and waded down, sinking his feet into the cool water and moving forward until he was immersed to the knees.

Somehow, Adam remembered the beach being more fun in his childhood. Maybe that was because of the age - and because his siblings had all been there the times they'd made an excursion. He could always count on his brothers to be up for a sand-war and his sisters to build huge castles with which they could later destroy by siege. They'd often fooled around in the water, all of them together.

He waited about an hour. He had no idea what he was waiting for, just that he was waiting for _something_. Then the sun started to set, coloring the sky behind Salisbury in reds and lilacs and it was still very hot out, but a wind picked up as well and a chill went through him. He turned around and made his way back to the house, hoping Stephen would be over whatever that had been, before.

Really, Stephen had no right to be judgmental or, oh, a total ass about Adam's skills. True, he hadn't said a word, but the look on his face had spoken plenty for Adam to guess what he was going to say, and Adam might have been called a dirty whore by a lot of people in his life, but it was different coming from Stephen. He didn't know why, just that it'd have hurt, a lot more than usually, and he had not been willing to stay until he got that slapped into his face. That would have totally sucked.

The front door was open, thankfully. Stephen hadn't gone out - he was in the kitchen when Adam stepped in, with his back to the door, tense lines about his shoulders. He didn't turn at the sound of Adam closing the door.

"Hey?" Adam tried cautiously.

"Back from your sulk?"

Stephen's voice was cutting. "Don't even start," Adam replied, hackles rising.

So Stephen didn't. As fast as the fight had surfaced, he subdued. Instead, he let his shoulders slump, turning back to the sandwich he'd been making, slices of bread and salad and tomatoes and bits of cheese and ham in between.

"How was the beach?" he asked finally.

Adam stepped closer. For a few seconds, he was confused. Stephen was going to let it go, just like that? A wave of guilt washed over him; he squashed it. This wasn't his fault. And if Stephen was going to ignore it, he wasn't protesting. Inside, he knew it hardly ever solved anything to just ignore a problem and hope it went away (didn't work for his triple axel either, sadly), but he was not planning on sharing that insight.

"Lots of sand," he therefore said amiably. "There weren't so many people, but it wasn't a complete desert either."

"Cool." Stephen got two plates and stacked the sandwich he'd finished on one, holding it out to Adam. "Here."

"What?"

"It's for you. We haven't eaten anything. We can go grab proper food later, this and some noodles is all I brought with me."

"You brought food?"

"Yeah? I didn't wanna starve, and I was fairly sure that we weren't going to get around to shopping right upon arrival." Stephen gave him a small smile.

"Thank you." Adam took the plate and stared at it. Another wave of guilt, and he had no idea why, but he felt like he should maybe apologize for being a total jerk. "Um. I'm sorry about earlier," he tried, tasting the words on his tongue. It wasn't too bad.

Stephen nodded. "I really wasn't going to say anything nasty. I was just curious, how you'd learned that. And - afraid, I guess, because you know so much and I don't."

Right, so _now_ they were talking about it. Over food. Adam rolled his eyes. "I told you, I don't care that you've got no clue about this stuff."

Stephen shrugged and turned back to make his own sandwich. "Do you want to watch TV?"

And now they were done talking about it. Adam sighed and turned on his heel, walking to the couch and grabbing the remote to turn the TV on. "CSI's on," he said aloud. "You want to watch that?"

"Nah, probably saw it already."

"Oh, okay. Should I check what DVDs they've got?"

"Sure, can't hurt."

Adam slipped over to the DVDs, biting into his sandwich, and snickered. "Batman, The Movie. I bet you're a huge fan." Stephen grinned and Adam wagged his eyebrows before turning back to the shelf. "Ugh, Saw, we're not watching that. Box of Adam Sandler movies. Whoever put this collection together has no taste - oh _god_." Adam turned to Stephen, only to find him leaning against the kitchen counter with his hip, watching.

"What?" Stephen asked, and he was indeed grinning.

"' _Solo Sex. Extended pleasure for men_ '," Adam cackled. "How awesome is that, they have _porn_ -"

"We are not watching porn," Stephen told him decisively, flushing.

"Aw, really?"

"Yeah."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm trying to eat."

Adam bounced over and sidled up to him, pressing close. "So you're one of those people who think food and sex don't mix?" He nuzzled Stephen's neck, laughing. "That's cute."

Stephen pushed at his shoulder weakly. "Not now, okay? I'm tired."

"Seriously?" Adam kissed his lips once. "After that bit of sex we had? You -"

"Don't, okay? I'm really tired, I have no idea where you take the energy from, but I had an ice session this morning and then I drove up here and then we fought and we fought again, and I really don't have the energy right now. Can't we just sit down and watch some TV without any of the...?" He waved his hand.

"Any of the what?"

He could see the word on Stephen's lips, 'any of your bullshit', but Stephen just shook his head and took up his plate, stepping away. He quietly moved towards the couch, settling down on it before he switched the station to Fox, where they were showing a re-run of Family Guy.

Adam sat down beside him, not too close, and got to finish his own sandwich. He was hungry; he also knew if he left it lying around for another ten minutes, it would taste stale and squishy.

"I knew this would happen," he said when he was done, putting the plate away and watched Stephen slip the last bite into his mouth. Stephen turned away from the screen to catch his gaze. "I told you it was better to stay long-distance, with just IM chats and text messages."

Stephen swallowed. "What are you talking about?"

"You said it yourself, we're either having sex or fighting. We're not exactly friend material when we're in close proximity for longer than a few hours -"

"That's not true. It's worked the last few times!"

"The last few times, you hadn't had your dick up my ass yet, so we both had to work a bit harder to get there."

"It's not always all about the sex," Stephen said, voice cool. "You can work towards other things too."

Adam stiffened. "You've been spending your summers in this dump a lot, right?" he asked, unsubtly changing the subject. Stephen glared before he turned back to the TV and nodded. It looked like it took all his strength not to say anything. "What do people do 'round here for entertainment?"

Stephen shrugged. "Depends on what you want to do. If you..." He stopped, hesitating. Giving him a provocative look, Adam dared him to finish that sentence, because he knew what was coming – and of course, Stephen took this as a cue to close his mouth with a snap and stay silent.

Adam huffed. "Dancing, music, some drinks? What do _you_ do for fun?"

"I don't know." Stephen looked embarrassed suddenly. "We, uh, used to go to the rides - you know. There's the amusement park close by. It's a kids park, but in the evenings..."

"We?"

"Yeah, I have some friends nearby."

"Really? Hey, call them up, we can all go clubbing together."

"No, seriously, they're not -"

"Come on, are you ashamed of your friends, Stephen?" Adam smirked. "Are they all geeks in huge glasses and pigtailed girls talking about astrophysics?"

Stephen pushed his arm. "Shut up. Better than having no friends at all."

"Hey, I have friends!"

Stephen was biting his tongue so hard it had to hurt, Adam could see it, and he was slightly grateful that he didn't say it, because no, there really was not a single one of them Adam hadn't fucked, but there was no need to comment on that. Instead, Stephen took the diplomatic route and said, "Fine. You know what, fine, I'll call, and you can meet them. Your own fault, don't say I didn't warn you."

And that was how two hours later, he ended up meeting Michael, Laura and White at the street corner Salisbury market, and found himself more than a little surprised by their appearance. He'd thought he'd stand out - he'd brought some fairly uptown clothes, tight black pants and a tiny shirt.

They, though, they were - interesting.

The girl was good-looking in a cheeky sort of way, with pink glasses and lilac streaks in her dirty-blonde hair, chubby and round-faced, with an incredibly pretty smile and a lip ring. One boy, whom Stephen introduced as Michael, was dark-skinned and dressed in all black: black jacket, black pants, black hair, black eyeliner and mascara, tall and painfully thin, with an air of easy confidence and a smirk as he took Adam's appearance in. Adam shifted his hips and gave him the patented sunshine smile, catching him off-guard.

And finally, the last boy, who immediately latched onto Stephen when they set out after greetings were done with. Brunette, doe-eyed, and far from average with his handsome face, freckles and curly hair. He was clearly a quarterback or soccer player or another form of popular sports player, with that body type; everything about his attitude screamed stereotypical prom king. He did not fit in with the other three whom Adam'd immediately categorized in his head as society misfits, at least in this little town.

And then White put a hand around Stephen's waist, pulling him close and things slotted into place, and White got to share Stephen's misfit label, about the same time Adam's alarms went off.

"You look _real_ happy to be here," Michael commented, casually sticking his thumbs down the impossibly tight waistband of his pants. The sarcasm was unmistakable. Laura was grinning on his other side.

"How'd the four of you end up in a merry band of friends?" Adam asked instead, not giving them anything. "You guys don't exactly seem to run in the same circles."

"So we've been told," Laura said, grinning wider. "Michael's parents own the house next to the one Stephen's parents rent for the summer. You've known Stephen since you guys were kids, right?"

Michael nodded at her, then turned back to Adam. "Laura lives mid-town, and back when we got together, she started joining us, going to the beach or like, arcades or whatever."

"You guys are a couple, then?" Adam nodded at them. There'd been no display of PDA yet, so he'd assumed they were all just friends.

"Sometimes," Laura said with a small smile.

"And White?"

"Ah, White..." They grinned at each other. "Well, that should be fairly obvious."

Adam narrowed his eyes and glared at the concrete beneath his feet.

"Are you his boyfriend?" Laura asked.

"Whose?"

"Uh... Stephen's?"

"Nah, we just fuck." He ignored the exchange of gazes and tried to keep his feet from hurrying up so he'd not, by accident, catch up with Stephen and interrupt what looked like an intensely private conversation with an 'old friend'.

"Right." Michael cleared his throat. "How do you guys know each other?"

"Figure skating."

"Right. Oh, hey, I saw you! Adam - Adam Rippon? World Junior Champ and all that?"

"You watch figure skating?"

"Just sometimes, when Stephen's skating and like, when he tells us to watch something," Michael explained.

Adam frowned and looked around. They'd been walking for a few minutes now. "Are we heading far out?" he asked, puzzled.

"No, it's down that street and on the corner," Laura pointed. "Hey, guys!"

Stephen and White stopped and turned, White's arm falling off Stephen's waist. "Yeah?"

"Don't run off, right? We're all here together."

Stephen waited a beat, then turned to Adam. "Sorry. You okay?"

"Sure, why wouldn't I be?"

And that was apparently word enough for all of them, because they got to the entrance and inside the club fine, and there was a steady beat of some mixed pop songs playing, lights and a dance floor, the amount of people making it hard to breathe. Adam caught Stephen's hand and dragged him onto the dance floor before he could protest, giving the rest of them a quick wave of 'see you after the song'. He felt a hot flash of triumph at the glare White sent in his direction.

Then he met Stephen's eyes and felt himself flush under the knowing gaze. "Can we just dance?" he asked, pulling Stephen deeper into the throng, in between bodies grating and rocking into each other.

Stephen nodded, pulled him close by his hips before he put his arm around his waist, leaving Adam the choice of turning around to grind back against him or put his arm around his neck to press their fronts together. Adam just put his forehead against Stephen's temple and started moving to the music, merging them together, finding a rhythm in the music.

He could feel the desire rolling off Stephen after a few minutes, smelling the sweat beading on his skin, and his own, felt himself growing aroused as Stephen's thigh pressed between his legs, rubbing against his cock. He gave them two more songs, then leaned in even closer and whispered, "You're turned on," into Stephen's ear, smiling happily.

Stephen made a little breathless noise before nodding, whispering, "Sorry."

"Thought you were tired," Adam teased.

"I am."

"You wanna go back to the house?"

"We can stay an hour or so," Stephen mumbled into his hair. "I'm not that hard-up for it. Unless you want to badly?"

Adam pulled back, lips curling. "If I was that hard up for it, I'd head for the toilets." Stephen's shoulders tensed and he started pulling away, but Adam gripped him harder. "With you," he said quickly. "Okay, don't be an idiot."

"I'm not," Stephen said roughly.

Adam sighed and gripped his wrist so they wouldn't lose each other, before he said, "Let's go get a drink and find your friends," and led Stephen towards the bar that was in the back.

They found Michael sitting on a stool, watching Laura and White fooling around at the edge of the dance floor, trying to out-do each other with silly dance routines, and Stephen laughed at his face. "You going towards being 'on' again with Laura?" he asked him.

Michael shrugged, embarrassed at being caught. "Maybe?" he said.

Adam snorted and got them some cocktails, pressing into Stephen's side as they leaned back against the bar, watching the people and sipping their drinks. After a while, watching the dance floor got boring and he shifted his gaze closer, to his side, up at Stephen's face.

Stephen was following his friends with his eyes, small smile on his lips.

"You haven't seen them in a while, right?" Adam asked.

"Yeah, we used to spend a lot of time together back when I got more time off in the summers. Now, we mail and chat sometimes, but not so often. Growing apart, I guess." Stephen talked quietly, almost inaudibly over the music, only for Adam's ears, and he sounded sad. He also yawned, two times, and grinned. "Sorry, I'm falling asleep on my feet."

"Yeah, you're getting old," Adam joked. "I've been trying hard to fit some sex-on-the-beach joke into the conversation, but I'm failing, so how about we cut our losses and run?"

Stephen was still watching Laura and White, and his gaze was getting a little too focused. At the words, though, he glanced at Adam and raised his eyebrows. "You sure?"

"Yeah. We can go to sleep. I'm kinda tired too, flying wipes me out." He didn't mention that he was still thrumming with energy. He didn't want to stay anymore, not with quarterback boy nearby. He realized he shouldn't have asked Stephen to bring his friends – then he told himself that if Stephen hadn't, he wouldn't know about this, and. And maybe that would have been better. Now that he knew, it would be gnawing at him. Though really, he was fairly sure when it came to cocksucking, there was no competition from the guy, so.

"Fine," Stephen interrupted his thoughts. "Let me finish my drink and we can go. Let me just say goodbye."

Adam watched Stephen as he meandered towards Michael, gesticulating, and then waved Laura and White over, who quit their dancing routines to listen to Stephen explain in a few words that they were going after all. He gave out hugs. When White pecked Stephen on the lips, Adam turned around and put his glass back on the bar; ignoring the sting inside, telling himself he was being ridiculous.

But. There had also been no protest from Stephen, so it wasn't - there was no way to say for sure, and...

He stopped thinking about it. Stephen was going home with him tonight. That was all that counted. He pushed away from the bar and went to collect him and drag him out into the cool night air.

 

~*~


	5. that two-way ticket on your knees - part 3

"So, what?" Stephen grinned down at Adam, who was flat on his back. One of his hands was busy working open Adam's pants. "You get to be jealous now?"

Adam pushed at his shoulder and said, "Shut up."

"No, seriously. You get to sleep around _and_ be jealous? How's that work?"

"Stephen?" Adam bucked his hips up when Stephen finally managed to get his hand on his dick.

"Yeah?"

"Stop talking and suck my dick."

Stephen rolled his eyes, but he did dive into another kiss, and that was the end of that discussion.

 

~*~

 

The next morning, Adam woke up with cravings of a non-sexual nature. Stephen was still asleep beside him, his mouth slightly open.

Rubbing his eyes reminded him that he'd forgotten to take out his contacts last night - they'd pretty much stumbled into the house kissing and he'd forgotten. He'd been trying to get Stephen's mind off the fact that he might be a little possessive about things. Some things more than others. Nobody had ever said Adam had to be rational.

In any case, he wanted smoothies for breakfast. Yogurt would do, but smoothies would be preferable. They had not actually made it to the shops yet, which meant it was high time to get moving. A glance to the clock showed it was past ten.

"Stephen?" he asked.

"Hmmm?" Stephen murmured, turning to his other side, away from Adam.

"Wake up, we have to get breakfast!"

"Lemme sleep."

"Come on." Adam dug his fingers into Stephen's side. "I'll give you sex if you feed me."

Stephen snorted. "Not interested."

"Oh well, if you're going to be like that, I'm going to the bathroom. Don't fall back asleep."

"What if I do?" Stephen asked, throwing a grin over his shoulder.

"I'll go and seduce whichever hot guy I first meet on the street."

Stephen stuck out his tongue. "Not unlikely, whatever I choose."

Adam hit his shoulder and scrambled off the bed. He went to the bathroom, changed his contacts for glasses so his eyes would stop stinging, and then checked the bedroom once more to find Stephen getting ready for a shower.

Instead of joining him, Adam went looking for a blender. There would be time later. Right now, he was hungry.

Fifteen minutes later - thankfully, Stephen didn't take ages in the shower - they were on their way to the store. Adam thought that it was sort of fun. He didn't do it too often back in Hackensack; his roommates bought his food along with theirs whenever they went grocery shopping as he hardly ever made huge requests.

Walking up and down the aisles in the shop while Stephen threw things into the cart made him feel useless, however, so he headed for the refrigerated section and stacked cups of yogurt until Stephen bumped into his back with the cart, bread and spaghetti and rice piled up, and said, "Are you planning on having a yogurt-war with someone?"

"Make love, not war," Adam proclaimed and put everything on top of Stephen's groceries. "Hey, you bought fruit! Cool. We need more condoms."

Stephen nodded his assent, flushing. Adam's stomach flipped for no apparent reason and he gave into the sudden urge to press up against Stephen and kiss his mouth, just once and quickly enough so that no one would see. The store was almost empty except for a handful of customers so Stephen didn't protest.

Instead, he gave Adam a blinding smile and grabbed the cart. "We should..." The hand-waving gesture wasn't hard to interpret.

"Yeah. Hey, let's get pancake mix for tomorrow? I'll want pancakes."

"You know that now?"

"Sure. I can predict my food cravings as accurately as a weather station can heat waves."

"Right." Stephen gave him a look that said he was weird, but then smiled. "Pancake mix. And some cookies, and then we'll go pay."

While Stephen hunted down the cookies, Adam convinced the guy at the counter to already start bagging with a flutter of his eyelashes and his gorgeously brilliant smile. The guy looked late-twenties, with black hair and tattoos up his arms, and he was not really impressed. He did however crack a grin at Adam when he ran his hand through his hair, trying to act suave, so that was a medium of success.

"Dude," Stephen told him when he arrived, having seen that last antic. " _Really_?" He cracked up.

The guy gave Adam his change, shook his head and grinned. Stephen grinned back and grabbed two of the bags, pulling Adam along, while he said, "I cannot leave you alone for _two minutes_ before you attempt to seduce a complete stranger?"

"Guess not, _mom_ ," Adam replied, but mostly couldn't stop smiling because Stephen sounded more amused than anything. He had a feeling all this would have gone differently if the guy had flirted back. But he hadn't.

"It's the glasses," he said. "They're off-putting. Maybe if I hadn't been wearing them -"

"He? Was simply not interested in you." Stephen snickered. "Glasses or not."

"Who knows!" Adam mock-glared. Then he sighed. "But even if, I wasn't exactly going to let him fuck me over the counter."

To which Stephen answered, "With you, I wouldn't say it's outside the realm of possibility."

Adam hit him with his bag, careful of the yogurt.

 

~*~

 

"I've never used that," Stephen told him from the couch, playing with the remote while Adam put the blender together and prepared the strawberries to throw in.

"How sweet do you like it?"

Stephen snorted.

"Oh, yeah, but I'm the pervert," Adam said. "No, seriously, do you need sugar in this?"

"Wouldn't that defy the point of making it low-fat?"

"We can work it off later." Adam wriggled his eyebrows.

" _That_ is a myth."

"Is not. Sex totally helps you lose weight."

"In what YouTube vid did you learn that?"

Adam stuck out his tongue and waved his knife at him. "YouPorn, rather. How else would you explain all those porn guys being so fit?"

"You are _incorrigible_."

"And you'll have to do with a few minutes of noise as I blend."

The strawberries fell into the mix of yogurt and milk with little churning sounds, and the white foam turned rose under his eyes, and then towards pink, the more strawberries he added. While it mixed, he prepared two glasses, and when it was done, he poured as much as fit and carried the glasses back to Stephen, who was busy hopping channels, unable to find anything interesting.

"It's noon," he said. "Of course, nothing's on."

"Thank you." Stephen accepted the drink and slurped once, smiling at Adam when Adam did the same. "This is good."

"It is."

"Is this all I'm getting for breakfast?"

"Maybe?" Adam took another gulp and set his own glass down, carefully taking Stephen's half-empty one out of his hand and aligning it. "What else would you like?" His gaze traveled up and down Stephen's body.

Stephen swallowed. "Are you for real?"

Adam reached out. His hands ran down Stephen's sides, over his hips, and one cupped Stephen's dick through his pants. "You're hard."

"That doesn't mean -"

Adam's face lit up with a mischievous grin. "Smoothie sex!" he crowed and shoved Stephen backwards into the couch, settling on his thighs as he went for the buttons of his pants. "Where did we put the condoms?"

Stephen threw his arm over his face and pretended he couldn't see, hear or speak at all. At least until Adam had him naked and writhing and then emptied the rest of his smoothie over Stephen's dick to lick it off again. It was _disgusting_ , until it wasn't. Stephen still had trouble not to be too mad about the mess on the couch.

 

~*~

 

"I hate you," Stephen said afterwards, waking up from his after-sex nap a good hour after they'd finished. Adam was lying mostly on top of him, dozing still. "I thought this was a vacation. How are you getting away with making me _work_?"

Adam scoffed. "You didn't even _do_ anything this time."

"Hey -!"

"Lying on your back letting me ride you? Does not count as work."

Stephen slapped his butt. "Stop being mean and get up. I need a shower, I have strawberry yogurt everywhere." When Adam smirked down at him, he couldn't help but stare. "You are kidding." But no, Adam wasn't. The proof was once more poking his thigh. "You want _more_ sex?"

"I can't help it!" Adam said. "And anyway, what are you, forty? Where is your sex drive?"

"I'm not _sixteen_ anymore!"

"You had no sex drive at sixteen either."

"That's so not true."

"How come you've not had a dick up your ass yet, then?"

Stephen pinched the back of his thigh.

"Ouch! Hey, stop hurting me, you - you _sadist_!"

"Liar. This totally turns you on, doesn't it."

It did, a little bit, but it was less the pain, and more the possibility of kink. Adam rubbed up against Stephen's hip and kissed his neck. "We can go in the shower? You can soap me up and get me off at the same time, if you're not up for anything more?"

The rubbing seemed to have some effect, though, because Stephen's dick was responding. "Shower," came the agreement.

"We've despoiled the couch enough, anyway." Adam sat up slowly, not without giving Stephen's erection another tug. "Take the lube with you." He grabbed another condom as well, just in case.

The cabin was spacious enough for two people to fit comfortably, with ample possibilities to keep oneself standing upright securely while one was getting fucked thoroughly, especially on slippery floor. Stephen was just bashful enough not to want to go that far.

"I don't want this to end with either of us breaking a vital part of our bodies. I'll just try like this, okay?"

And after a few minutes of soaping and caresses, Adam started to understand why Stephen had been so happy about the idea. This sort of sex was lengthy and languid and involved a lot of soft, gentle touching, from the distribution of foam on Adam's chest while they made out under the shower spray to the massage his dick received.

"I could..." Stephen offered when Adam started to gasp into his shoulder, pressing close; Stephen didn't stop jerking him off with swift wrist motions, rhythmically. When Adam dipped his head in a nod, his other hand slid between the cheeks of Adam's ass to rub over his hole, a little slippery, sliding just the tip inside.

Adam moaned. When Stephen slowly pressed one finger inside, he gripped his upper arms harder and demanded, " _More_."

Stephen slid two fingers in to the knuckle, angling _up_ , the motion awkward but so worth it for the jolt through Adam's body. And then he got the hang of it, coordinating, thrusting his fingers in sync with pulling on Adam's cock, deeper and shallower, driving him crazy, making him breathe harshly into Stephen's shoulder, ready to beg, to promise, anything to finally come.

The careful press of a thumb next to the two fingers already fucking him, rocking deep inside him, stretching him out more, brought him over the edge, spilling over Stephen's fist, sweat pearling down his neck.

The water washed away the traces, and he leaned back against the tiles once Stephen let him go, cool in contrast to the heat of the shower. He was still breathing in fast and shallow pants.

"You okay?" Stephen asked, rubbing over his collarbone, kissing his neck. He looked flushed, lovely with the water flattening his hair.

"Fine," Adam mumbled. "Awesome. Do you need -?"

"I'm good. Maybe later? You can. You know. Return the favor."

Adam grinned. "Sure." Then he looked up. "You mean, like."

Stephen shrugged. "If you'd like."

"Oh."

"Why, is that strange, that I'd like to try?"

"No, not at all. I thought you'd want to wait longer. What with the... you know?"

"I _don't_ know. With what?"

Adam bit his lip and shrugged. "Never mind. Let's get out, we'll run out of water. And we have the sea waiting on our doorstep."

Stephen raised his eyebrows, taking the showerhead to rinse them both off, before he asked, "You want to go to the beach now?"

Adam smiled. "We'll take some towels and catch a few hours of sleep in the sun?"

 

~*~

 

They returned home in the evening burned to a crisp, in Stephen's case a smooth bronze while Adam felt like he was going to get skin cancer from just looking at the skin stripes already peeling off his burned back.

"That's what you get for using crappy sunscreen," Stephen told him when he whimpered at the smallest touch.

"I used the best sunscreen I could find. It's hopeless. I'm not made for sunbathing!"

"Lie down on the couch -"

"- fuck couch," Adam snickered.

"- get my Gossip Girl tapes and put them in the player already. I'll make us a quick dinner."

"I'm not hungry," Adam told him petulantly. He rotated his left shoulder and moaned in pain. "I'm dying."

"No, you're not." Stephen sighed. "I'm putting the lasagna we bought into the microwave. It'll take half an hour. I bet you everything you'll be whining that you're hungry in ten minutes."

"Not if you take care of me," Adam told him with straight face.

Stephen's eyebrows rose.

"Don't give me that look. I'm hurting. I need comfort." He limped up the stairs and returned shortly afterwards with lotion and after-sun cream and a cover from the bed that he put on the couch. He was topless now, wearing pajama bottoms, and lied down upon the blanket on his stomach.

"What. Are you doing?"

"Stephen. Don't be an ass. You need to make it better."

"What do I do?"

Adam pointed blindly at the tubes he'd brought. "Heal my back with those and your special healing powers."

"Ah... I'm sorry to disappoint, but I don't think special healing powers are in my repertoire -"

"Less talking. More gentle massaging of my poor, tortured back."

For a moment, Stephen seemed to contemplate making him suffer some more - which Adam resented, and plotted to revenge at the nearest opportunity; then he left the lasagna to its fate and came over, sitting down on the floor next to Adam, where he grasped for the lotion.

"You didn't put in Gossip Girl," he complained fives minutes in, while Adam was purring and wriggling under his hands, which were covered in sticky, creamy glue. "I'm bored."

"Shut up and work, slave," Adam grumbled.

"Hey."

When Adam didn't react, he pressed one spot on his back a little harder than strictly necessary.

"Ouch! What - stop it!"

"Not unless you entertain me. I'm doing this for you. You can stay awake as long as it takes me to soothe you from your stupidity."

Adam sighed. "Fine."

For a minute, Stephen worked in silence, rubbing the lotion slowly into Adam's screaming red skin, then he asked, "You said you were in Scranton recently?"

"Yeah?"

"How's your family?"

Adam turned his head a little and gave him a look. "They're fine."

"No, seriously. I wasn't just - I want to know, right? Tell me what's been going on. I'd tell you about my family, but my parents are really boring and I don't think I've seen my sister in a year. The most that ever happens is when we have a garden party and the crazy neighbors dip into their vodka stash."

Adam snickered. "The last time anyone in my neighborhood dipped into any vodka stash was probably like, four years ago. My - mom's birthday? She had her girl friends over, and I think they were pretending to be the Sex and the City cast or something, because after three or four shots, I had to get my brothers out of there unless I wanted them to be scarred for life."

Stephen dug his thumbs between Adam's shoulder blades and kissed his chin when Adam protested. "Not the last time you were at the vodka, though, was it?" he prompted.

Adam didn't miss the little smile that settled on Stephen's face which he took as his cue to jump into a long story about the time his brother'd gotten someone else's brother to buy him some beers for Adam's eighteenth birthday to celebrate 'properly'.

 

~*~


	6. that two-way ticket on your knees - part 4

Upon waking up, Adam still felt like he was being tortured slowly, but at least all the skin off his back had peeled and he was left with new, rosy skin in its place; it stung, but it was healing. It had been stupid to fall asleep the afternoon before, but the sun had been so comfortingly warm and the ground hot and sandy, and Stephen'd been lying right next to him, their legs touching as he leafed through that book of his, ("Really, Carriere? Are you trying to show off with that? Because ancient Greek guys don't exactly turn me on." - "Don't diss Aristotle, _Rippon_ , he knew more about writing gay porn than you ever will!") with that slight murmur he always gave, a monotonic and repetitive sound that made Adam sleepy. He hadn't had a choice but to drift off.

This particular morning, there seemed no reason at all for Stephen to get up bright and early, considering he wasn't the one who'd fallen asleep the past afternoon; but there he was, bouncing off the bed and announcing they should do something fun. Fucking Stephen. He might be used to the sun, but Adam definitely wasn't, which meant today was going to be a day of rest in the cool, dark shadows of the house.

"I'm in pain," he moaned and buried back under the covers. "I'm staying in bed."

"Oh no, come on. Your back was way worse yesterday, and I did put on the cream to make it better. Don't be a whiny little brat." Stephen pulled at the covers. "Adam..."

"Leave me alone."

"We can go have waffles? There's a place uptown that serves the best waffles, and not just one meager little square like you get at most places, you get a whole plate full of them. They're delicious."

Adam blinked up through the covers and considered this carefully. The waffles he had to leave the house for; then again, staying here, hungry and alone and in pain? Not a good choice either.

"Jesus, fine," he gave in, peeking out. "But you have to help me shower, and then put more stuff on my back, plus get me into my shirt. And I expect special treatment."

Stephen rolled his eyes. "Like what?"

"Lots of kisses." Adam smiled when he saw Stephen's mouth quirk.

"I think you have yourself a deal," Stephen said, and tugged once more, this time on Adam's ankle. "Come on now. If we get there too late, it'll be packed. It's very popular."

Adam groaned and threw his legs over the edge of the bed. A few minutes later, he had Stephen pressed against the tiled wall in the bathroom, tongue in his mouth, working his hand in rhythm with Stephen's gasping breaths.

 

~*~

 

The 'place' was indeed packed. It was a small restaurant/café on a street corner, and they sat outside on the guest bench for a good half hour before "Freddie Mercury" was called, which was the name they'd drawn from a stack of wait-list cards.

Stephen hadn't exaggerated. Once they ordered, they got two plates very quickly, one with three huge waffles with blueberries and another with a stack of pancakes soaked in maple syrup. They tasted delicious. They'd sat down next to each other instead of opposite, a good choice because it meant Adam could tug his ankle around Stephen's to keep his foot close and their calves touching. It also meant that he could poke Stephen with his elbow whenever he wanted.

"So, I wanted to ask," he started.

Stephen nodded and put another piece of pancake in his mouth, knocking his knee into Adam's in payback for the elbow-poke.

"How's college working out for you?"

Stephen blinked. "What?"

"I was just wondering."

"Yeah, it just... wasn't what I expected you to ask. But, like. It's college. It's not like I'm on campus a lot or anything. I go to my two lectures whenever I can get to class, but the rest of the courses are all online if I can find the time. You finished high school online, too, right? You should know how it works."

"I meant, do you like what you picked? You're doing business?"

"It's okay. It's not my favorite subject, but I'm trying to think past skating. And I want to run my own sport medicine practice some day, so I need that background in business."

Adam sighed. "My mom's pushing me to take a course or two, too."

Stephen grinned at that. "Hey, I mean, whatever, right? Creative writing's what you're into, so why not just do that and look what comes of it?"

"I - actually had another idea." Adam felt his face heat up. Intimate daydreams weren't something anyone liked to share, he was sure, and he didn't want to tell Stephen what he'd been imagining, sometimes (not very often) in private, when nobody else was there and he could just _make stuff up_. Thinking about how they might end up... together. Sort of. In their future. It was a nice fantasy. Comforting. He didn't want to tell anyone, though.

Stephen flicked his fingers against Adam's thigh. "Hey." He caught Adam's gaze and held it. His eyes were warm and big and trusting. "It's fine. You don't have to decide anything yet. You don't even have to enroll if you don't want to."

"I want to. I thought... I'm sort of interested in psychology," Adam rushed out.

There was a second's silence, then Stephen coughed, like he'd choked on a piece of pancake he'd swallowed before, and his eyes started glittering like they always did when he was close to laughter.

Adam punched him lightly in the arm. "Shut up, okay, it's not funny."

Stephen ducked his head and started _giggling_ at that. "It _so_ is funny, it is," he managed in between laughing fits. "It's _hilarious_."

"What's so hilarious about it?" Adam stabbed a waffle with his fork. "Oh my god, stop laughing. Stephen!"

"It's just the - image -" and Stephen went off again, tears welling up as he half-coughed, half-giggled; Adam only caught words in between that sounded suspiciously like "seducing" and "red couch".

He pointed his fork at Stephen and narrowed his eyes. "Stop it. First of all, I was thinking more along the lines of sport psychology, Mr. sport-medicine-practice. And secondly, if you're implying that I'm unable to keep it in my pants, fuck you, it's not like I've been having sex left and right since I met you, either."

He was uncomfortably aware that a few people in the vicinity had probably heard that, because he'd raised his voice above room level, though most of them were stoically pretending nothing at all had occurred, engrossed in their breakfast - but he also couldn't care less because Stephen was staring at him with his mouth half-open like he hadn't fucking known that. Even though Adam had _said_ , before, and that stung.

Stephen seemed to realize that something had gone wrong, because he immediately closed his mouth with a snap and swallowed, then looked away and at the smooth tabletop beside his plate. "Sorry," he muttered. "I didn't - you didn't make it clear, and I thought..." He trailed off.

Adam sighed and pushed his food away. That much for this. He'd thought they were on a date. Maybe he'd been thinking wrong. His stomach was churning. He wasn't hungry anymore at all. "Are you going to let me pay?" he asked quietly.

Stephen flattened his hair with his palm and was still not looking at him. Adam closed his eyes, leaned against his backrest for a second, feeling the pain of his sunburn course through his body. Then he told himself to man the fuck up, because it was impossible that this was happening, after everything, that this would be the big deal when everything else had been going so well. Had been going well yesterday, at least, and last night, and this morning. Okay, so maybe not everything had been going well, but at least they were trying. He could _try_. Being afraid was lame.

He snuck his hand over and caught Stephen's fingers with his own. His stomach felt like a stone, sitting in his abdomen, afraid Stephen'd pull back.

Stephen didn't. He didn't look up either.

"Tell you what," Adam tried, in an attempt to resolve the tension. He knew he wasn't entirely innocent of creating it; after all, a minute before, Stephen had been giggling happily. He could have just let it go, fuck. "How about - let's go back to the house to get some rest for an hour or two."

Stephen nodded.

"And then we could go have some fun at that park you told me about?" Adam offered, trying a little smile.

That helped; Stephen's shoulders untensed slowly, and then he was squeezing Adam's hand back, half-smiling, forgiving Adam already. It came as a surprise when he surged forward and placed a small kiss onto Adam's nose, bumping their foreheads together. "Fine," he said, and added, "You can even pay, if you want."

Adam caught his lower lip with his mouth, ignoring the stares they were getting from the locals, and kissed Stephen hard. He was trying, all right, he was trying. He didn't care what people thought, he just wanted to be all right with this, because it felt like there was something there and he wanted to keep it.

 

~*~

 

They made it upstairs kissing, Stephen's hands placed gently on his hips, leading as he walked backwards. Adam enjoyed the feel of their tongues sliding together, the heat of Stephen's mouth whenever he pressed his tongue in, chasing his taste; they stopped, though, when they arrived in front of the bed.

"No way I'm lying on my back," Adam warned, pulling them apart. Stephen's fingers stayed splayed on the bare skin between his jeans and his t-shirt, rubbing the little patch there.

"Stomach?" Stephen offered.

"You'd have to drape on top, and that'll hurt too -"

"Not that." Stephen rolled his eyes and stole another kiss. "You can just lie down. We don't need to do anything. If it hurts, we probably shouldn't anyway. Just let me put more of the cream on your back, and we can, I don't know. Talk."

Adam smirked. "Of course. You do love those talks, don't you."

"It's how I keep most of my friends, yes," Stephen said, his tone of voice short.

Adam's eyebrows jumped up. "Gee, thanks. The implication here being that I don't have any?"

Stephen shook his head and pulled away, taking a step back. "I wasn't implying anything. Why do you always think everything I say is a criticism of you? What I just said wasn't even _about_ you."

"I don't 'always' think 'everything' is," Adam said courtly.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to generalize." Stephen sighed.

"Fine. I didn't mean to tease. Can we let it go now?" Adam shook his head and climbed on top of the still unmade bed, lying down on his stomach just like Stephen'd told him to. He was suddenly very aware of why he was so crappy at all sorts of relationships. Stephen wasn't wrong, which was probably exactly why it always hurt most when he said it; he didn't have many close friendships. And even if Stephen hadn't meant to imply, it still arrived in Adam's brain within the context of _his_ experiences. It didn't matter what Stephen meant if it still hurt in the end.

The thing was, relationships were so _exhausting_ , and Adam sometimes caught himself doubting if they were even worth the work that it took to upkeep them. It was mean and selfish, but he just got so tired of people sometimes, and of arguing about the silliest things and it was even worse with Stephen, who didn't always let Adam have his way and could be stubborn and mean back at the oddest of times.

The bed dipped beside him and he felt Stephen curl up beside him. When he turned his head to the side, Stephen was looking at him, expression unreadable. "I don't know what you're thinking right now," he said. "I'm not even sure I want to know."

Adam shrugged. "I'm pretty sure you don't. It's not nice."

"That's okay. We don't have to talk, that was just an offer. I can -" Stephen hesitated. "Do you want me to do your back?"

It wasn't what Stephen had wanted to say, Adam could tell, but it didn't matter. He didn't want to know either. He just nodded and felt his muscles relax when Stephen ran his hand over the back of his head, letting his fingers rest on his neck for a few minutes, in between the curls, not even moving, just a steady, gentle pressure of his thumb to the knuckles of his spine.

 

~*~

 

Adam ended up falling asleep again to the even motion of Stephen's hands stroking his back, between his shoulder blades, the heavy, comfortable weight of Stephen sitting on his butt. He had skilled fingers, and he worked the cream into Adam's aggravated skin, not missing a spot, going in circles over and over and over, until Adam's eyelids fell close.

He woke up when the smell of food traveled from the kitchen into the room to climb into his nose, awaking his stomach to grumbles of hunger. He descended the stairs and caught sight of Stephen balancing two pots and a pan at the same time, trying not to burn anything while spicing and regulating the heat of the stove. It made him smile, how versatile and competent Stephen looked at something that wasn't figure skating.

When he stepped closer, Stephen must have seen him out of the corner of his eyes, because he turned quickly and smiled back, greeting him with a sunny, "Hey, sleepyhead."

Adam found himself waving and quickly dropped his hand in embarrassment. He was such a tool.

"Sleep well?" Stephen grinned. He'd caught the movement, but let it go, which Adam was thankful for.

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"Three hours? It's way past lunch-time. I thought, since we wasted most of those waffles, you might be hungry."

"What's this?" Adam sniffed.

"Mashed sweet potatoes and chicken in sauce? I think I burned the potatoes a little. Hold this -" he handed Adam a stack of plates. "I'll bring the pot, watch out, it's hot."

Adam snorted. "You do love your kitchen. I'm just asking, is this a healthy occupation for a young boy your age?"

Stephen narrowed his eyes in a mock-scowl. "Am I hearing someone making fun of my cooking skills? Because starving is still an option."

"I'm good," Adam laughed. "We can eat. I'm sure it'll be delicious."

"You better be good at lying," Stephen warned. "Because otherwise, you're not getting ice cream for dessert."

Adam tiptoed up behind him and wrapped his arms around his middle, pressing his forehead to Stephen's neck. "You wouldn't torture me like that, would you?" he pouted. "I've always wanted to have ice-cream sex. Have you forgotten how much fun the smoothie-sex was? You wouldn't want to miss it, would you?"

Stephen snorted and turned around to peck him on the lips before shoving him out of the way. "Okay, move now," he warned, "hot pots coming up. Also, no ice-cream sex. Seriously, the couch is going to learn to speak just to complain about our freaky sex life."

"Nobody said anything about the couch," Adam wriggled his eyebrows.

"Sit," Stephen ordered. "And eat. No. No talking. And stop pretending to blow the spoon. _Adam_!"

 

~*~

 

They did end up having ice-cream sex, because Adam was a sex- _god_ , and Stephen couldn't say no when Adam dropped his pants. It was just that easy. Afterwards, though, after an hour nap, and a shower, and still no amusement park, they did move back to the couch, and Stephen finally got to watch the Gossip Girl episodes he'd brought.

"You're pathetic," Adam laughed, biting his neck gently. He was lying on his stomach (just to be careful of his back, which was hardly even twinging anymore), on top of Stephen, who had his head propped up on his hand, watching the screen. "You get more excited about that show than having sex with me. You're a _freak_."

"Hm-hm," Stephen mumbled. "Shut up, Blair and Chuck are about to blow up at each other. Look! Look, this is going to be _funny_!"

Adam groaned and buried his face in Stephen's t-shirt. "I could just get off humping against your leg and you wouldn't even notice, would you?" he complained.

"Shhhh. Mean girls screen time."

"You know what I'd love to do?" Adam mumbled. "I'd love to dress up like a girl tonight, with a skirt and girl panties, and lots of eye make-up, and high-heels, and go to that amusement park like that with you. We could go on the Ferris wheel and I could climb in your lap so you could fuck me all through the ride. That would be hot."

Stephen hummed.

"You're not listening to me, are you," Adam sighed. "Maybe _you_ should dress up as a girl. Would you be okay with that?"

"What?"

"Just say yes."

"Hm, sure," Stephen mumbled, raising his hand to run his fingers through Adam's locks, smiling.

Adam grinned, because come on, it was a little funny, but mostly he just let it go, settled down on Stephen's chest and enjoyed the caresses with his eyes closed.

 

~*~

 

They went to the Ferris wheel, in the end, but by that time, night had already fallen. Stephen had no idea why Adam kept laughing at him, which was gratifying in its own way, until Adam filled him in. It was interesting to watch Stephen's eyes grow huge before they darkened with arousal and he pulled Adam in to kiss him deeply, aggressively, until Adam was panting for lack of air. They hardly saw the sparkling lights of the illuminated town from above, unfolding in front of them.

"I think we'd get arrested if we did fuck in here though, sadly," Adam complained while they were getting out of their wagon once the ride was over. They both flushed hotly at the pictures that popped up on the cheap computer screens by the stand they sold them at. At least Stephen's body was hiding where he'd put his hand.

"Let's hope nobody gets their hands on those," Stephen commented as they walked on. "Not that we're famous enough to be recognized or anything, but..."

"Yeah. Huh." Adam bit his lip. He hadn't thought of that. He didn't exactly want his mom to find those by accident. "I think they have a policy for deleting them if no one buys them."

"Hm." Stephen nodded, then shrugged. "Not like we can do anything about this now." When they passed a brightly lit shooting stand, he smirked. "D'you wanna bet I can win you a plush toy?"

Adam threw his head back, laughing. "Like I haven't enough plush toys to keep my descendants happy for _generations_."

"True. But none's won by me in a shoot-out."

"And here I thought you'd be a pacifist."

"What gives the impression?"

Adam shrugged. "All right. If you want to bet, I want. Hmmm. Oh, the pink dragon!"

Stephen glanced over. "I completely approve," he grinned.

"I knew you would. Right up your alley, that one. And since it's a bet... what do I get if you don't win it?" It was a hard challenge. Adam tilted his head. The bull's eye was tiny, he had to hit it with two out of three, and Stephen... had to be pretty damn confident to claim he would be able to do this so easily.

Stephen crossed his arms. "What do you want?"

Adam stepped close and kissed him shallowly before moving past his mouth to place his lips by Stephen's ear. "Three out of three," he said. "Anything less and I get to fuck you tonight."

Stephen pulled back, met his gaze evenly and smiled. "You're on."

The guy at the stand was late-twenties, looking bored as he handed Stephen the fake-shotgun. "Careful with that, boy," he warned with a little smirk at Stephen's sparkly pink shirt. "Don't club anyone over the head with that."

"I'll try my best," Stephen said with an easy smile, smoothly maneuvered the gun into position and Adam could barely look fast enough before he pulled the trigger twice, had two shots, barely apart, spot-on the target. Then Stephen stopped, turned, looked over to Adam, caught his eye, grinned widely, and pulled again, missed the next shot by about a foot, not looking at the target at all.

Adam blinked, and felt the returning grin spread over his face before he could control it.

"Oookay," the stand-owner said, giving them a weird look, especially when Stephen pointed at the pink dragon and said, "My boyfriend wants that one, please."

 

~*~

 

"How'd you learn to shoot like that?" Adam asked, clutching his dragon. His heart was beating fast, and he felt a little sweaty from excitement. Seconds ago, Stephen'd been brave enough to grab his hand, and they were walking like that now, side by side, like most of the other couples, close and _suggestive_. It felt very strange. No one'd ever showed off like this before, not like they were trying to say, 'Look, this is my boyfriend'. He tried to ignore the twinge the word invoked in him, push it down.

Stephen scratched his neck, embarrassed. "Republican uncle," he offered. "Though not a crazy one. He just likes hunting. He took me out a lot when I was a kid."

"Not anymore?"

"Let's just say I got old enough to realize that the result of hitting a target in the wilderness is that it falls over dead. It sort of took the fun out of shooting for me."

"Oh." Adam nodded. "Makes sense."

"You can't shoot?"

"No."

"Would you like to learn?"

"What, to kill animals?"

"No, no, just. At a range. We could, huh. I could call, check if we could practice for a few hours. It's fun as long as it's just shooting at paper-circles."

Adam glanced over and tried to decipher the sudden flush that was taking over Stephen's face that was hardly visible in the bad lighting. "Like a practice where you'd put your arms around me to correct my hold and kick my legs apart to improve my stance?"

Stephen laughed, caught out. "Something like that?"

Adam pulled him closer by his hand and asked, "Something like a date?"

"I - yeah. If you wanted."

Something scary and big settled in his chest, making it hard to breathe. "I want," he pushed on, even though he didn't know if he wanted. He didn't feel like he wanted anything like that, not at the moment, but it was just scary thoughts and fear and it didn't matter, because Stephen needed to hear it, and it would help, probably, with the whole thing where they did noting but have sex or fight, and they hadn't been doing that so much very recently, right? Things had been going pretty well.

"Because," Stephen continued, "when we both arrived here, and I asked, remember? You said you weren't sure -"

"Can we just go with what's right now?" Adam interrupted. He didn't think he could take Stephen doubting on top of his own insecurities right now. "This is okay, right? It's going well, isn't it?"

"I'm not sure..." Stephen rubbed his forehead. "Yeah, I guess? It's going well. It's just..."

"Just what?" Adam held his breath.

"Can we take this off the street somewhere?"

There were people everywhere, groups of teenagers and young couples and older couples, passing them by, laughing and talking. Stephen was right, this was not the perfect place for a conversation like that; then again, Adam didn't want to wait. He wanted all of this out of the way now so they'd never have to talk about it again, so they could just go on with whatever they'd been doing that seemed to be going, if not perfect, then at least reasonably well.

"Do you know a quiet place?"

"The beach is a few hundred feet down there," Stephen pointed. "We can hurry up."

They found an exit, people streaming in and out of the amusement park through a Disneyland-like gate, and pushed through the throng to get away from the crowd. Stephen's approximation held up, and a few minutes later, they found themselves with sand crunching under their sneakers, and the sound of waves rolling up the beach not far away, invisible in the darkness. There were still a few sole wanderers out here, people whose faces they couldn't see, whose shapes were blurry and distant, but the further away from the park they walked, the more deserted the area became.

Finally, Stephen seemed to decide on a spot, looked around and couldn't see anyone who'd be in hearing range. He pulled Adam down with him when he plopped into a seating position, and Adam followed. He might have preferred to do this standing up himself, but Stephen was right. If this was destined to end in a fight again, at least this would help keep it calm in the first stage.

He couldn't see Stephen's face so well, which was another draw-back of being away from most civilization. Back in the town, there had been lamps and lights everywhere - here, he had to squint to see. He didn't know whether Stephen looked worried or scared or just exhausted. He did hear the nervous sound of him rubbing his hands against his jeans, though, before he asked, so fast the words blurred together, "You're serious about this, right?"

Adam blinked. "How - do you mean?"

"You know this morning, when things got awkward?"

"Yeah?"

"I was surprised because I thought... well."

"That I slept around a lot. I know." Adam rolled his eyes.

"Maybe not even, but that you thought you _could_ if you had the opportunity."

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"It's like, when I have a boyfriend, I want them to be with _me_. I get jealous sometimes, too. Also, when I asked you the last time about this, you said you needed time and that you had no idea if you wanted that, so I thought you don't want to be boyfriends. Which is fine." Stephen flushed, and this time, Adam could see it on his face. "It's not like I loathe what we do right now."

Adam considered this. "So you think what's going on right now is that we're just friends who have sex and go out together?"

Stephen shrugged. "Is it not?"

"What about White?"

Stephen stared. "What about White?"

"He wants to fuck you. So right now, you'd let him?"

"No, what? No, I wouldn't."

"Why not?" Adam thought it was a fair question. "You're attracted to him."

"Apparently, my mind works in monogamous ways," Stephen said sardonically.

"Am I supposed not to get any implications from that statement, either?" Adam asked.

"Sorry." Stephen gave a dry smile. "I really am, I'm sorry. That was mean. It's just that I don't really even think about it. I like _you_ right now. But the whole fidelity thing isn't even the main issue, I just need to know that you're. What I said before, serious? Like, committed."

"I think what you mean is, you want to know if I like you back."

The silence that followed was filled with the sound of the waves, and a few kids a way back, a dog barking. Stephen seemed to be looking for words, which Adam thought was stupid because he was fairly sure that was exactly what Stephen was asking.

"That's really idiotic," he added, when Stephen still didn't say anything after another minute. "Of course I like you, what sort of question is that? I wouldn't be here if I didn't. It's really sort of insulting that you'd think I'd play with you like that." He took a deep breath, deciding to lay his cards on the table, because obviously Stephen was a complete moron. It wasn't easy. His stomach twisted, but he forced himself to continue. "I don't want to be anyone's boyfriend," he explained, "because it does strange things to people to have that term between them. Believe me, I've seen it happen a lot. I like my freedom, okay? I don't want us to be all clingy and possessive and controlling and all that stuff. It's like you said. I need to feel like I _could_ , even if I'll never take the opportunity."

"So what you're saying is, you're not making any promises, but I should go ahead and trust you not to fuck this up."

Adam lifted his chin. "As far as I can see, I haven't yet."

"So when we leave here tomorrow evening," Stephen said carefully. "And you go back to Hackensack, and then like, the season starts and you get to meet lots of new people, and we won't see each other for a while, at least until we visit each other, you'll still be thinking the same way?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

Stephen shrugged and looked away. "Because there are tons of guys out there who're ten times more interesting or handsome or experienced, maybe?"

Adam groaned and moved, tumbling Stephen backwards onto the sand, draping himself over him. "Since when do you lack self-confidence like this? Seriously, we met months back, remember? We've been keeping in touch, and I haven't forgotten all about you yet just because I met new people at Champs Camp, or the clubs and parties in NY. That won't change. Stop being so scared."

"You're scared too," Stephen mumbled, narrowing his eyes as he looked up at Adam defiantly.

Adam pressed their lips together. "I'm allowed," he pointed out. "My parents got divorced, and now I have commitment issues."

Stephen snorted. "Are we really going to make out on the beach, with sand getting everywhere, especially into my pants?"

"I prefer making out to having serious talks in which you turn out to be a complete douche," Adam told him seriously.

"If you drop me for a younger, better-looking piece of ass, I'll hunt you down with my shotgun, and you know how good a shot I am now," Stephen teased. But Adam could see that he wasn't completely joking. His hands were shaking a little while they found their way under Adam's shirt at his back.

"I like you, I like you, I like you," he repeated, until his tongue was in Stephen's mouth and he couldn't talk anymore at all. Only when they parted did he add, "It would be best though, if we got up and went back to the house. After all, we do have a bed, and I remember you losing a bet."

Stephen's face turned hot at the remainder, which Adam felt because he was pressing his nose against Stephen's cheek. It was pretty damn cute. "You know you can still say if you changed your mind about that, by the way? If you're not comfortable -"

"I'm good," Stephen told him quietly. "It's just... a big deal, all right? To - to me."

Adam smiled against his mouth. "I know." Stephen's heart was beating so fast, he could feel it through both their shirts against his own chest, and he was surprised Stephen wasn't having a heart-attack. He licked the corner of Stephen's mouth gently. "I'll make it good, I promise."

"Okay."

"Okay. Let's get up."

They moved together, Adam springing to his feet, helping Stephen stand up, never letting go of his hand when they decided to walk back by the beach-side, staying close to the water. Half a mile down, Adam took off his shoes and laughed when the warm water licked at his toes whenever he got too close to the waves, which made Stephen join the fun, too. They both ended up carrying their sneakers in hands, jeans wet with splashed water.

 

~*~

 

When Adam had arrived in Salisbury Beach, he had felt energetic and awake and he had had no idea that once offered the chance to relax for a few days, he would find out how behind on sleep he actually was and spend most of his days on the brink of slumber. It wasn't surprising, after the past two and a half days of interchanging naps and food and sex and more sleep, that the rest of the third day would prove very similar: when they climbed into their pajamas and underneath the covers that night - it was long past midnight - Adam could barely spare a thought for sex. Instead he slid close to Stephen, entangling their legs as he felt Stephen pull him close by encircling him with his arms, and he was out in a matter of seconds.

He awoke the next morning yawning into Stephen's collarbone. His joints creaked and his back ached, and he arched and stretched for a good minute, before he realized that he could actually get used to waking up like this, being held close, comfortable, warm, with another person breathing evenly against his cheek.

It was a very strange feeling to realize this would be their last day together and that they wouldn't wake up in the same bed the next morning. Adam's flight left in the evening, and Stephen would drive back home after dropping him off at the airport, back to Boston, to college and his parents and most importantly, his rink, to train for the upcoming season. And Adam, obviously, would do the same.

The thought of writing text messages and emails and instant messaging was a very small comfort after this.

Stephen was waking up slowly as well, disturbed by Adam's movement, but Adam was pretty sure he'd stay in bed for a while longer, so he decided to switch the tables on Stephen for once and went to catch a quick shower before he headed down into the kitchen and started putting together breakfast. It wasn't a gourmet meal, because he'd never had to really cook anything more than spaghetti in his life, and even he could boil water, but the toaster worked, and they'd bought eggs, which he scrambled and cooked, and he poured orange juice in their glasses. He even found a tray to put it all on.

When he got back to the room, he was surprised to see Stephen up and about; he was stepping out of the bathroom, towel around his waist, hair dripping wet.

"Huh," Adam said. "And here I thought I'd bring you breakfast in bed."

Stephen's smile was brilliant. "That's really sweet. I'm sorry, I got up after you went downstairs, I thought you might want some help with breakfast."

"Oh, well." He put the tray on the nightstand and grabbed one toast off it, taking a bite. "You can always come here and get a piece, too, if you want?" He finished his toast, and licked the crumbs off his fingers suggestively.

"I'm not even dressed," Stephen grinned. "I feel like you might take advantage if I get too close."

"On the other hand, I do have the food."

"It's a hard decision. Stay here and starve, or go over there." Stephen paused. "And probably starve as well."

"Dilemma," Adam hummed. "Though who knows. I might take good care of you. I'm nice like that."

"And what would I have to do, to deserve that?"

Adam took another piece of toast and put some egg on a corner. Then he bit it off. "I think I could have picked a strategically better food to play with," he sighed sadly.

Stephen laughed. "You and your food fetish. Can I even classify this as a fetish? It's just weird."

"There's nothing weird about including some food to liven up your sex life," Adam protested. "Also, no mouthing off about food or you're not getting any."

"Getting any what?" Stephen asked innocently.

"Hah. Funny. How about you get on the bed, and I'll show you what you're missing."

It was almost too easy, once the positions were ascertained; Stephen was pliant and submissive, letting Adam lay him out on the bed, spread him open, feeding him little bits of the toast while he settled comfortably on Stephen's thighs, running his fingers down his chest, thumbs grazing his nipples.

"I like you like this," Adam smiled down at him. "It's different."

"From what?" Stephen stared up, and there was no smile around his mouth, but his pupils were blown and his eyelids heavy, and he looked like he was enjoying every touch, shuddering into it, little gasps escaping his mouth whenever Adam's fingers touched an especially sensitive spot, or whenever Adam rocked up and got very close to Stephen's dick.

"You seemed confident with being top," Adam explained. "I didn't expect you to be such an easy bottom."

"Hey! I'm not easy!"

Adam smirked. "We'll see about that once I'm done with you."

Before Stephen could protest again, he blew the final crumbs off his stomach and moved up in a fluid motion, pressing their dicks together while he draped himself over his body, pressing his hips down aggressively. Stephen's eyes opened in surprise as his back arched off the bed, along with his hips to get more contact, create more friction.

Adam kissed his collarbone and his neck, and said, "I'm going to take your cock in my mouth and suck you until you're relaxed, and then I'm going to finger you until you're ready, okay?"

Stephen let out a breath like a laugh. "Thanks for the warning."

"You're welcome. It's scarier when you don't know what's coming, that's all."

"Oh. Okay."

"Just try to enjoy? This is all for you, so just... try to figure out how to play your muscles, how to take some control. It'll be fine."

Stephen inhaled deeply, and nodded. Adam kissed his mouth, and again, giving him fluttering butterfly kisses, until Stephen laughed into them and started to return the favor. The tension slipped out of his muscles, his shoulders dropped back, and when Adam put his hand on Stephen's abdomen, he wasn't cramped anymore, lying down easy.

"Here we go," he said, another warning, and slid back down, back, and back until his knees were resting on the bed, between Stephen's knees, and he could easily reach Stephen's dick with his mouth and hands.

It was easier than he'd thought. He'd expected Stephen to tense up again at the first sign of chance, but he didn't. He pulled up his legs, setting his feet steady onto the covers, giving Adam space to work his blow job magic, showing off control and confidence of his body that Adam for a second envied. He didn't know where Stephen's doubts came from about Adam's affection. With a jolt of guilt he realized that it had to be his own behavior, because Stephen was otherwise one of the most secure people he'd ever met.

But that was neither here nor there, he reminded himself. He couldn't change any of that right now; all he could do was make this one really good for Stephen. He remembered the feeling of opening up like that for the very first time. It wasn't easy; actually, it was incredibly scary. Adam had had the advantage of being more than tipsy during his first time, and that had taken off the worst edge. Watching Stephen's face, though, as Adam licked around the head of his dick, his hands rubbing up and down the insides of Stephen's thighs, he saw anticipation and fear, but also excitement and pleasure, and he felt like maybe there was an advantage to going into this clear-headed, too.

Stephen made a little sound, and Adam took it as permission to pull off his dick and start for real. The lube was by his hand, and he gently traced his fingers behind Stephen's cock, rubbing over the delicate skin there before he pushed into his body just barely with one finger, feeling both resistance and give. Stephen didn't tense up, didn't protest, and Adam let his gaze flicker back and forth between his finger breaching his body and the expression on Stephen's face: a hint of curiosity, a little of doubt, but no discomfort yet.

"Okay?" Adam heard himself ask.

"Yeah. Yeah, it's - fine."

"Good, I'm going to -"

"- oh." Stephen scrunched up his face when Adam slid his finger deeper, past the second knuckle, and found Stephen's prostate on the first try. "That..."

"... was a good magic trick?" Adam asked, wriggling his eyebrows.

Stephen gave a startled laugh. "Yeah."

"Now, this'll be a bit more; I'll try two, and we'll do the magic again."

"Okay." Stephen breathed out when Adam pulled out his finger and lubed up a lot more. Stephen's erection was dwindling, so Adam went back down on him while pressing both fingers against his entrance, and that helped, making Stephen tense up in that first moment before he groaned and his body unwound once more, his hips moving off the bed.

It was all the time Adam needed to get his fingers back inside, and wasn't surprised so much anymore when Stephen spread his legs wider, urging him deeper with ever thrust into Adam's mouth, moaning whenever Adam crooked his fingers to hit his spot. He didn't warn for the third. Stephen strained at the feeling of new intrusion, and there was definite discomfort on his face at it, but only for a second before he forced that part away, and pleasure overtook once more, Adam's tongue swirling over the head of his cock, playful and distracting.

They stayed like this for a few minutes, with Stephen trying to get a rhythm, breathing harder the longer he worked on it, and a sheen of sweat building on his body. Adam let him, ignored his own erection in favor of concentrating on the task at hand. It wasn't completely enjoyable, especially because he couldn't get any friction at all for his cock, not even humping the mattress, but it was satisfying, because he loved Stephen's dick on his tongue, the taste, the simple thought that Stephen was letting him _do this_ , and the reactions he got every time he hummed, the moans, the thrust of his hips up, begging for more. And, Stephen's body was so tight and hot inside, muscles clenching around his fingers whenever Adam managed to drive him up onto that peak. He could imagine what it would feel like to bury himself inside over and over, forever, or just touch him, and taste him, feel him fall apart around Adam's fingers and tongue.

"I'm ready," Stephen finally said, almost like he was the one getting impatient. When Adam didn't stop, he warned, "Adam," and again, "Adam, you can _move_ ," until Adam pulled his mouth off and said, "Okay, yes," trying not to sound too eager, even though, who was he kidding, he _was_ , was going crazy thinking about sinking into Stephen's body, being inside him, feeling him stretched around his dick.

He yanked his fingers out a little too fast, making Stephen's body spasm from the shock and maybe a little pain, but then he was back, soothing, stroking his thighs, a hand on his stomach, making eye-contact. Stephen looked almost drugged, especially when he watched Adam roll on the condom, eyelids falling close-to-shut, and his chest expanded on every intake of breath.

"Relax," Adam warned once more, just to make sure. "Do you want to turn around -?"

"- I'd like. If this'll work, we can stay?"

"Definitely. Just help me get your leg - there." He helped pull up Stephen's left leg with his hand, holding onto his own dick with his right, guiding the tip to Stephen's entrance, pressing against it. He knew it would fit, he wasn't even all that big, but it never looked like it would, and it was always so hot watching someone open around him, the skin thin and stretched, dragging and clinging as he pushed in.

Stephen made tiny little sounds until the last part, when Adam couldn't take the slow drag anymore, had to move harder, faster, or come on the spot; Stephen gasped like he was dying at the last shove, maybe pain mixed into the pleasure, but that vanished immediately because he pulled Adam down to press a sloppy, uncoordinated kiss to his lips before urging him to _move_ , rocking his own hips up to meet the thrusts.

Adam didn't hold out for very long; he made sure to get his hand on Stephen's dick before he came, though, and fit the motion of his hand to the rhythm of his hips moving in and out of Stephen's body. Stephen appreciated the help, with both his arms tight around Adam's sweaty back, holding on desperately, clinging while Adam rocked into his body.

Orgasm hit fast and merciless, and he could feel Stephen start to clench and shudder around his cock while he came himself, squeezing his eyes shut, trying to catch his breath and not die of lack of oxygen somewhere in between. He rode out the last waves, taking his hand off Stephen's cock when Stephen flapped him away, too sensitive for touch, and pulled out to a groan of discomfort from both of them.

"That's always the sucky part," he complained, grimacing while he tied off the condom and squinted at the trash in the far corner.

"Don't you dare throw that, I know your aim," Stephen warned. He'd found a comfortable position already, spread-eagled, which Adam couldn't blame him for. He was well-versed in the pain of a sore butt. He had his eyes closed, too, but the small smile playing at his lips belied the tone of his voice.

"Your eyes aren't even open," Adam said. "How do you know what I'm planning to do?"

"I'm psychic. The trash is like, three steps away. Don't be a baby."

"If I was a baby, I'd have an excuse not to have to get up," Adam told him. But of course, he gave in, hard as it was, and walked to trash and then back to bed, lying down close enough to Stephen so that the sides of their bodies touched from thighs to shoulders. "You have come on your stomach," he commented, drawing with his fingers through the mess.

"And now you have it on your hand," Stephen groaned. "How are you so disgusting."

"You want me to lick it off you?"

"No, I want you to get a wash cloth and wash it off me," Stephen offered. "If you feel like moving, that is. Which you seem to do, otherwise you'd stop the wriggling."

Adam grinned. "As I know you're not always this cranky after fabulous sex, it must be the fact that you've had my dick up your ass. How did that feel, by the way?"

Stephen hit out with his right arm and smacked Adam's thigh. "Is this your version of asking 'Was it good for you, too, honey?'? Because that would be really pathetic."

"I'm just saying -"

Stephen turned over to his side and opened his eyes, smiling widely when he met Adam's gaze. "It's fine."

"It is?"

"Yeah." Stephen shrugged, blushing. "It was really good. Hardly even hurt. So, like. If you ever want to do it again."

Adam nodded, feeling an answering blush on his own cheeks. "That would be cool. We can, like. Switch off, if you liked it that well, even. I don't mind whatever."

"Hm-hm. That sounds good." Stephen yawned and curled up closer. "Sleep now?"

"Why, are you tired again already, old man?" Adam teased. "It's just past breakfast time."

"Shut up. We don't have much time left, and I want to make the most of today. Half an hour break, and then we go again," Stephen said decisively.

Adam snorted, but he didn't exactly protest. He wouldn't get laid for another quite a while, after all, or so it seemed. So he might just as well take as much as he could get while he could get it.

 

~*~

The End :)


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